


All You Need Is Love

by Autumn_Maple_Tree



Series: The Ancestor [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-10-24 20:22:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 26
Words: 32,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10749123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autumn_Maple_Tree/pseuds/Autumn_Maple_Tree
Summary: Beth and Balthazar search for information about Rowena so they can find Legion's Grace.Dean does something out of character.Unattached drifter Christmas forces Gabe to face the truth about a lot of things.Lucifer and Olle finally restore Cas to his former glory.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is still really rough. I've skipped around some in writing this one; I've got a huge gap between the beginning and the part of the story I've developed the most right now. It's a work in progress. And, if you think I'm jumping around too much, sorry, it's only sort of right at the beginning so I can get everyone on the same page. With the character action taking place in different time zones, I'm trying to show you what's happening at the same time. If it's confusing, I'm sorry. It will even out soon.

In a dark alley littered with trash and snow, a metal door bursts open, slamming into the brick wall behind it, as three women run blindly into the night. Giving chase, an angel with flashing blue eyes and honey blond hair sprints after them, Cheshire grin spread across his face; he is thrilled to finally have something to hunt. 

**

“Come on Dean,” Olle shouts as they run through the sunlit corridors of the old hospital, blades dripping with vampire blood, “I thought Beth was working on your stamina?”

“Fuck you,” Dean huffs out from about twelve feet behind him, “your legs are longer.”

Olle laughs as he bursts through a door into the dark stairwell, “I don't think so Winchester,” he says pulling a flashlight as Dean comes up behind him. “Your brother is more than capable of scratching my itch.”

“Dude!” Dean gives him a disgusted face as he pulls his own flashlight. “I don't ever need to think about you and Sammy and sex,” he says as they part company, Olle going upstairs and Dean headed down. 

**

Balthazar knows Beth is behind him, hindered by this maickal storm, but he keeps moving. The witches they have been searching for, three priestesses of the Grand Coven, took one look at him and bolted from the bar where they were waiting on Beth; supposedly an initiate seeking an audience with the High Priestess. He has no idea if they know he is an angel, and, frankly, he does not care; they ran and he gave chase. Their futile attempts to stop him by calling upon the power of the elements to increase the storm do not phase him; he moves through the night without getting either wet or cold, feet refusing to make an indent in the fresh fallen snow. He can feel their power and tracks them easily, coming upon them in the central, oldest, part of this little village. He comes to a stop between two buildings, still in shadow, vision perfect even though, this close to them, the storm rages around them in a white out. He smiles, they think this will keep them safe. Chuckling, he moves like a jungle cat and stops mere feet in front of them; with a snap, the storm dies down to the pleasant flurry of flakes it was before their panic sent it out of control. “Now ladies,” he purrs, voice as smooth as Olle's $3,000 whiskey and faintly accented with French, “why did you run?” 

The women stand nearly ankle deep in snow, in awe of the thing before them; his arms crossed over his chest in a commanding pose is paired with a lazy, almost bored, expression while his eyes flash faintly with a deep, old power. They shiver, exchanging long looks before turning back to the angel, he radiates heat and, they all note, is still perfectly dry. His power is real Heavenly power, something they have never seen before, something those mousy, fallen children who play at being angels have no concept of. They are, all three, at once attracted and terrified. 

**

Searching the top four floors of the old hospital, Olle has found three vampires hiding, terrified of both the hunters and the members of their coven who no longer have a soul. He knows it would be a mistake to let them live, but he still feels bad about killing them. Worried now, about Dean, he pulls out his phone and calls him while wiping off his machete on the shirt of the last vampire he killed. When the hunter does not answer, he jams his phone in his pocket with a curse and sets off at a steady jog, back toward the stairwell. 

**

Beth runs through the streets, eyes adjusting to the dark as she blinks snow out them, following Balthazar's flashing blond hair and looking around her for the three witches they are chasing. God, she hates Poland. What the fuck possessed her, she wonders as her lungs start to burn with the mix of cold January air and exertion, to decide to do this now? Oh yeah, she remembers, Cas' slasher attack by Amara and Gabriel's box of Christmas jewelry; she is so fucking stupid. 

It had been a mistake to take an angel to the damn bar; she told him not to come, but he insisted. The three women they were searching for spotted them, spotted him, as soon as they walked in and had taken off out the back; their hurried escape singling them out before Beth even found them. Breaking through the narrow street into the old city center, she sees Balthazar has them and thanks God for, well, God because His resurrection of the angel is the only reason he is powerful enough to stand against three high ranking members of the Grand Coven and truly make them afraid.

Coming to a stop a few feet from where the women are standing, powerless and frightened, in front of the angel, she bends over to catch her breath, letting it puff out of her in cold quick bursts while she says, “Indira, Gemmella, Aubrey, why did you run from me?”

The three women look her over slowly, wondering how she knows their names, before recognition shocks through Aubrey and she laughs, “Ancestor, I always knew there was something strange about you.” Her eyes narrow, “What do you want?”

“Information Aubrey, that's all,” Beth says coming over to wrap herself around Balthazar; just in case the women try something, she wants to be close enough to keep him safe. Or, maybe, she just wants to be warm; just wants to be next to him and the intoxicating power he radiates to let these witches know how easily he could destroy them. “What's going on with the coven now that Nadia's missing and what can you tell me about Rowena McLeod?”

“Demons took Nadia almost two years ago,” Gemmella answers. “Serena is our High Priestess now.”

“Rowena is in the wind; no matter how many we send seeking her,” Indira says indignantly; like their inability to find, and kill, her is as upsetting as Beth's own. 

“It's like she's just gone,” Aubrey says. “We had a clear line on her movements until just after Samhain, but now,” she shakes her head, “she is beyond our reach.”

Beth shakes her head, freezing, and burrows closer to the emanating warmth of the angel who, when he realizes how sodden she is, warms and dries her with a thought. “I want to meet with the coven,” Beth says nearly sighing at the feeling of Balthazar's Grace moving through her. “I have information about the Darkness.” 

“Bethy?” Balthazar's blue eyes stare down at her seriously. He knows this is dangerous, and pulls her closer to him. 

She squeezes him tighter and looks up at him, “You're not coming, but I need to talk to them. They won't, can't, hurt me,” she says softly. “And, they need to know. We all have to know, and be prepared, for what's coming.” The angel nods, once, and she turns back to Aubrey, “He's going home and,” she steps away from him, to stare daggers at the three women, her voice colder than the air around them, “if anyone so much as thinks about laying a finger on him, they answer to me.” 

All three women nod once and Balthazar is left standing alone in the still falling snow. The angel shakes his head with a chuckle and moves himself back to Paris; where they have been staying for the past two weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

Appearing in the hallway, because, with the door locked, the apartment is as heavily warded as the Bunker, Balthazar unlocks the door and goes in. City light casts ominous shadows around the room, from the floor to ceiling windows, as he makes his way to sit at the island. Pulling the vial Gabriel gave him out of his shirt, watching it hang from the chain around his neck, he stares at the tiny, swirling bit of Legion's Grace his brother extracted from the seal to the Cage. “If anything happens to her,” he talks to the vial like Crowley can actually hear him, “I'm going to make you suffer before I give this back to you.”

**

Beth appears with the three witches outside the Grand Coven's headquarters at a former Men of Letter's estate in Scotland. The move would be shocking, but this is the only place witches can actually flash themselves to like demons. When Abadon massacred the Men of Letters, she did not stop with those few stationed in the United States; she spent almost three months killing her way through six continents before she decided it was time to follow Henry through his still open door into the future. Beth looks around and wishes she had not spent so much time hiding John when she should have been hunting the Knight and preventing pretty much everything that is happening now. If she had succeeded in finding Abadon, she could have been neutralized, but it took her weeks to realize all but the smallest handful of members were murdered just as viciously as those destroyed during Josie's initiation. 

Beth follows the three women through the gate and down the drive, pulling her jacket tighter around her and letting out a silent prayer of thanks to Balthazar for drying her clothes and warming her frozen skin because it is actually colder here than where she left him in Poland. She tries to recall, in minute detail, what she knows of Serena, but all she really remembers is a power hungry hanger on who was no match for Nadia or her famed codex. She shakes her head, wishing she had kept closer tabs on the Grand Coven before winding up with amnesia. 

“What do you think Ancestor?” Gemmella asks haughtily as they move across the gravel drive and stop at the steps leading to the front doors that are, even now, beginning to creak open at their approach. 

Beth knows the witch wants her to be impressed with their take over of the former Men of Letters building since, before Abadon came, witches were massacred by the hundreds in pursuit of knowledge and power. She is not impressed, however, when all they did was move into an abandoned building. “Like Pemberly and the House of Usher had a baby, Gem, it's great,” she says sarcastically. 

Once inside, she trails behind the three women, taking in the peeling paint and wallpaper, scattered tatters of what was once furniture, broken windows, and the stench of old death mixed with rancid water and mold. Dean is right about most witches, they are disgusting. Those true, innately powerful users of magick are a different story, but the Grand Coven is a conglomeration of witches; most of whom are not possessed of natural magick that is taught to them through a family connection. These witches scrape and claw to steel power they should not have and use it in a way that destroys the natural balance magick seeks to maintain. They let their surroundings become a reflection of their own putrid souls as they become more obsessed with the power flowing through them than anything else. If she had more time, she would kill them all, but, as it is, they make her skin crawl and she just wants to get out of here as quickly as possible. 

Whether it is for dramatic effect or necessity, the entire house is lit with candles like some creepy old vampire movie and Beth wonders how they have managed not to burn the place to the ground. Coming to a stop in the doorway to the dining room, Beth's guides step aside and let her enter. The mahogany table still bares evidence of a Men of Letter's dinner party that was, probably, interrupted by Abadon; blood stained carpet, overturned chairs, human remains, and the table and floor still scattered with broken place settings. Beth saunters up to the woman across the table, Serena, a buxom brunette shorter, even, than Beth, with an unattractive, round face and bulbous nose set above too thin lips and beneath overlarge, gray-brown eyes that are too far apart. The woman radiates power, however, gained from her take over of the coven. Beth will have to tread carefully if she wants to get any information out of her. 

“It's been a long time Serena, and you haven't changed a bit,” Beth says, smiling as she pulls out a chair and dumps her former colleague's shriveled, half-mummified corpse to the floor; dropping into the seat, she swings her feet up, combat boots breaking the plate they land on when they hit the table. She gives the woman a long, almost leering, look and goes on, “Power suites you.” 

Serena laughs, and her less than attractive physical features are softened by the enchanting tone of her voice. “I almost didn't think it was you, but,” she leans on the chair on front of her and stares at Beth before nodding, “there you are.” 

“Here I am,” Beth spreads her arms out before crossing them across her chest, it is a masculine gesture that would be more impressive if she were Olle's size, but it is still effective. “I want to talk to you, and the Elders, about The Darkness,” she says causally. “And,” she turns serious, “I want to know what information you have about Nadia, and Rowena McLeod.”

“Why would I give you any information about Nadia?” Serena asks turning to a decanter on the table behind her, near the roaring fireplace. Filling two glasses she turns and hands Beth one before turning up her own. Beth is suspicious, even with Serena drinking, but she tilts it to her lips anyway. 

“I don't intend to return her to you,” Beth chuckles, swinging her legs off the table and standing in one fluid motion. “I need information, and I want Rowena dead!” She is pacing and watching Serena, and her three escorts, while she waits. She knows she should, and usually does, have more patience than this, but she just wants to torture them for information before burning this horrid place to the ground. If she can get a lead on Nadia, or Rowena, though, she will take it and, grudgingly, she will admit the power the Coven wields could be useful in the future. 

“We all want her dead,” Serena says fiercely. “Nadia was taken by demons; we have no idea what's become of her. Rowena,” Serena shakes her head, emptying her glass, “has managed to evade us for over three hundred years. If you can't find her, Ancestor, what makes you think we can help?”

“Fine,” Beth slams her drink on the table and stops pacing to stare Serena down. “I demand an audience with the Elders based on my previous association with the Coven and my status as eldest founding member. I'll have answers Serena, whether you want to give them to me or not,” she states evenly. 

Serena eyes her for a long, tense moment before she nods once, “Very well.” She gets a malicious smile on her face as she goes on, “You stay here, and agree to participate in the full moon ritual, then you can meet with them. If you leave, or refuse participation, you forfeit your right to an audience as well as your standing within the Coven.”

Beth knows what this means, full moon rituals always involve human sacrifice, and she steels herself for what she is about to say, “Fine, but, if the rest of this place looks like this, you owe me a week at the Tower Inn for sleeping here even just the next two nights.” Her tone is clipped and light; reflecting her distaste for this whole situation as merely distaste for her surroundings. 

“We can make the reservation before you leave,” Serena says before gesturing toward the three women still standing in the doorway. “Gem will find you a room.”

Beth nods and follows the witch toward the great hall and up the main staircase, wondering what the fuck she has gotten herself into. She is going to gut Crowley for this before she gives him back his Grace; then again after, maybe.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean has been creeping through the lower floors of the hospital for almost an hour and has found nothing. He is starting to wonder if they have already killed all the vampires, but a sound in front of him in the dark alerts him to something lurking; he takes a firmer grip on his machete, risking exposure by using his flashlight because, unlike vampires, he cannot see in the dark. The noise, whimpers, screams, and laughter, is growing louder as Dean nears two solid doors. He clicks off his flashlight because there is light streaming around the seem of the doors and, putting it away, pulls his gun, loaded with Olle's vampire bullets, silencer in place. 

There is no way to go quietly through the door, so Dean takes a deep breath and shoves, disengaging the mechanical lock and pushing the door open. In the middle of what was a surgical suite, there are two vampires cutting into, from the state of the body, what must be a third; if she were human, she would have died long before now. He thought he had seen everything, both in Hell and on Earth, that can could be done with torture, but this, this makes his stomach rebel. Shots ring out as Dean drops the two torturers and moves over to the woman on the table; she is whimpering and crying, trying to breathe but he thinks, maybe, he sees one of her lungs on the table behind him. There is almost no blood, he notices, despite the fact that she is spread all over the room, body split like for autopsy, internal organs cut out of her and her intestines, still attached to her, strung all over the place. The other two, he reasons, must have drained her dry before, or while, they cut into her.

“Please,” she gasps, trying to draw air into her remaining lung while Dean watches her heart beat frantically in her wide open chest, “please kill me, please!” Her voice is an urgent whisper and her hand, strapped to the table, tries to reach for his sword arm. He finishes her quickly, and the two on the floor, but something inside of him short circuits and he slides to the floor in the far corner, so he can see anything that comes through the door, but there is a buzzing in his ears and he needs to just be for a few minutes. He does not even hear his phone ring. 

**

Olle finds him quickly enough, he left the door open so light from the surgical lamps floods the corridor. “Dean,” he yells at the hunter as he takes in the scene from the doorway. “Dean!” he calls again, not wanting to get too close; he knows what he does when startled out of a panic attack. 

His whole body shakes and, eyes focusing again, Dean looks up at Olle and says, “Huh? What?” 

Olle comes into the room then, using his giant body to shield Dean from a sight he will never forget, and grabs his arm, “Come on man, let's go, it's getting late and the rest of these fuckers will come out like cockroaches come sundown; I'd like to get something to eat before then.” Dean just nods, allowing himself to be lead, and shielded, from the scene as Olle pulls him back into the corridor. 

When they come back later that night, they figure the rest of the coven must have had their souls because the bodies are piled in the atrium, still smoldering.

“Come on,” Olle claps Dean on the back, “let's go.”

“I don't like this man,” Dean says gruffly. “It's too fuckin' easy.”

“Yeah, well, soulless or not, they've cleaned up our mess for us and they're in the wind. I say we go home.”

Dean still doesn't like it but he has to agree. 

**

Beth precedes Gemma into the room she is being given and pauses, ransacking her brain for the proper incantation and just the right amount of power to light all the candles in the room and start a fire; she cannot be seen as weak in any way. She refuses to audibly sigh, relieved it worked, and turns to the petite, ebony haired witch still in the doorway, “Seriously, this place had electricity in the fifties, and would it have killed any of you to clean it up over the past sixty years?” Gemma chuckles while Beth looks around, it is not as bad as she initially thought. The bed looks fresh, and clean, and the thick layer of dust that coats everything downstairs seems to be gone, but, she realizes, she could have done that while starting the fire; she was intently focused on not turning on the lights only to find a mess. 

“I'll have someone bring you food and you'll get towels, and proper clothes, in the morning,” she says before turning and leaving her alone. 

The feeling of power as Gemma locks the door behind her is not lost on Beth and she knows she is supposed to be a prisoner here until the full moon. Pulling out her phone, Beth sees she has no signal so she prays to Balthazar and lets him know where she is and what is going on. She apologizes for getting herself into this mess, but assures him she is well and, unless she prays for assistance, he is free to amuse himself until this is over; as long as he does not go looking for Crowley or getting himself into any kind of trouble. 

The bathroom is all white tile and huge clawfoot tub, and she spends a few long minutes staring at her reflection in the plain round mirror above the sink, wondering what she has gotten herself into, before she goes back out to the bedroom. There is food on the table by the fireplace and bottled water, she stares at it for a long time before she eats slowly. 

Food finished, she spends a couple of hours examining the suite thoroughly, but notes nothing out of the ordinary. Eventually, she realizes it is nearly three and she knows they will be in to wake her sooner than she is ready to get up. Dragging the huge duvet and a pillow off the bed, she puts all the candles out with a thought and curls herself, still dressed and fully armed, into the fluffy down blanket by the fire; the room is still freezing and the idea of sleeping in a dead man's bed is distasteful. She sleeps with one eye open and, blessedly, does not dream.

**

Sam is tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Olle and Dean have been gone for a week, hunting what turned out to be soulless vampires in New Mexico; he hopes this means Amara was not in Louisiana sucking souls from werewolves before the massacre in Wichita. He feels like he should have gone with his brother, or his boyfriend, but they were climbing walls with nothing to hunt, so he let them go alone. Lucifer and Cas need help, anyway, with their research into possible ways to raise Cas from Fallen status. Rolling onto his back, he stares at the ceiling. Finally realizing he will not be sleeping, he makes his way through the Bunker at a lazy ramble. Coffee in hand, the hunter listens to the creak and moan of the lift as he rides down to the library and Lucifer and Cas' research room across the hall from the one Gabriel commandeered so many months ago; before they even knew he was alive again. 

Slipping into the empty room, Sam goes over to a table and picks up a tome to being reading where he left off hours ago; he has decided they are not going to find a way to return Cas' power to him without killing an angel. He and Dean have spoken to Olle, Lucifer, and Gabriel; they are convinced there must be an angel out there somewhere who has done something deserving of making them Cas' sacrifice. The problem is Cas' reluctance to kill another angel; and their total lack of leads when it comes to finding one. Foregoing other options, then, they continue their research and, Sam at least, continues to pray they find something soon; the way Gabriel and Lucifer talk about their brother indicates Cas' return to his true, full power could be monumentally beneficial when it is time to battle Amara into submission long enough to lock her away again. 

Putting his book down, utterly useless he realizes, he picks up another, opening it to the spot marked with an envelope. When the bookmark falls to the table, he notices what it is and, laying down the book, picks up his as yet unopened Christmas gift from the eldest archangel; carefully breaking the seal, he pulls out several handwritten pages and begins to read.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Indira wakes Beth at with a knock. She has brought coffee and food as well as clean towels and a long sleeved, green wool dress with brown leggings, and chocolate riding boots with a thick, lined, white cloak; she seriously hates being forced to dress like it is the 1400's but she is keeping the clothes, they fit well, are warm, and of extremely good quality. The only problem is, with them, she is forced to go totally unarmed except for a brown leather belt around her waist and a sheath for a small ritual dagger. She is given a leather bag to store her clothes and weapons. After a thorough examination, she stuffs everything in the bag and uses her dagger and her blood to ensure no one can steel her possessions before following Indira downstairs.

 

**

 

Dean grumbles and huffs as he pulls into the parking lot of the grocery store, but Olle insisted. He knows Sam when he gets into research mode, he will forget to eat, and, even with Linda there, Olle assures him the only food in the Bunker will be whatever Gabriel snapped up for them at the time.

 

Olle shakes his head, closing the passenger door, “You've been in a bad mood this whole trip. I get this was a cluster fuck, but nobody got dead after we got there and I even let you drive.” The immortal shakes his head, “What's wrong?” He has tried to get Dean to talk about what happened in that room before he got there, but the hunter won't budge.

 

Dean grunts, slamming the door on Olle's new truck a little harder than he should, “Soulless vampires man, what's next? And I still can't believe I let you talk me into leaving Baby at the Bunker.” Olle figures he won't do that again; she is a safe place for Dean and he needed her.

 

“Hey man, we had to test the warding on the truck,” Olle says as they walk into the grocery store as it is just opening. Dean jerks a carriage from the stall and shrugs agreement.

 

Not wanting to risk losing his new truck the way he lost the last one, Olle, Sam, and Lucifer spent the better part of a week carefully stripping the paint before carving warding symbols into the truck and re-painting it as well as painting symbols under the hood, inside the door and side panels, and on the underside of the bed. It had worked remarkably well, Dean thinks, not even the angels could go near it until, like at his home, Olle keyed them into the warding; and the vampires had kept their distance as well, despite trying to get to them they just could not get closer than a few feet. Dean is tempted to do the same thing to Baby, but the idea of cutting into her, after everything she has been through, gives him pause. It is something he will keep thinking about, though, just in case.

 

The two hunters do not really speak as they go through the store, unless it is about potential meals. Dean grumbles as Olle fills the cart with far too many fresh fruits and vegetables to suit him, but, he notices, the doctor says nothing when he dumps arm fulls of junk food, sweet treats, chips, and candy in as well. In line at the cashier, Dean picks up a newspaper and Olle tells the girl to add it on too before pulling out his credit card and helping load the canvas bags he brought from the truck, back into the empty carriage.

 

Dean helps Olle load four cases of beer from the bottom of the carriage into the back seat before he turns and shoves the empty carriage across the isle into the return. Grinning, he slides into the passenger seat and pulls the folded newspaper from beneath him. After sending Sam a text, letting him know they are close, he continues reading while Olle backs out of their parking space and heads for home.

 

**

 

_Sam,_

 

_I'm not sure this is a good idea. Gabriel keeps telling me to leave you alone, stay away from you, and Olle keeps telling me to make small efforts to spend time with you. I keep getting conflicting information and advice. I was here, though, for weeks; observing you without your knowledge. I'm sorry that was a necessity, Cas was dying and I couldn't leave him. I feel like, watching you, my initial fears were unfounded. Whatever my brother did to heal you, left your memories and took your damage; I'm more thankful for that than you can possibly imagine. Knowing what happened to you after you were returned, I can't ever explain how much it pains me to know I have been the cause of your life's misery. I'll never be able to make your brother understand how sorry I am, I ruined his life too._

 

_Father, Amara, Michael, what happened, what I let happen, has destroyed so much; could potentially destroy everything. I see it all like I'm outside myself looking at it happen to someone else. She, the Mark, drove a wedge between Michael and I. In the beginning, we were inseparable, he breathed out and I breathed in, but Father made us to help him keep her from destroying what he'd done. As we engaged her, Michael drifted further and further away from us, from me, to be with her. I had to protect him. I had to protect Dad and Gabe and the awesome expanse of Creation. I watched it grow and change around us and I realized it no longer needed Dad to become; it just is, as he just was. I had to keep her from destroying it. Father tried to get Michael to help me, wanted to ask Gabriel and Castiel instead, but I couldn't let him bind them to her as a way to keep her at bay. I was prideful and foolish, thinking I could survive it alone._

 

_When I calmed, when Gabriel finally released me, I was already insane and Michael had already begun plotting against me. Her desire to unmake everything, my desire to make Michael suffer for choosing her over me, lead me to do horrible, unspeakable things. Gabriel has saved me, saved us all, so many times it is hard to imagine when Loki is all so many see; all he wants anyone to see. He is still trying and seeing the two of you, so much alike, hurt by everything I've done..._

 

_It feels like all I keep saying is, “I'm sorry,” and I'm not begging for forgiveness, I don't deserve it. I don't want your pity either. The way my brother looks at me sometimes, how quickly he forgave me, it makes me feel even more responsible, more undeserving. Olle keeps telling me that, until I can forgive myself, nothing anyone else says will help. I don't know if I'll ever be able to look back and not hate myself, the thing I became, the things I did to my brothers, to Creation, to Olle, to you._

 

_I want you to know, though, I am sorry, for whatever that's worth; though I doubt it's worth very much. And I want to tell you I'm trying to look back, piece it together, understand it, figure it out, and find a way to use it instead of being crippled by it. That, I hope, will help us all; even if it never helps me make amends._

 

_This isn't much of a Christmas present, but it is all I have. I promise, Sam, I'll do everything I can, I'll die, to stop her from taking your big brother away from you the way she took mine away from me._

 

_~Lucifer~_

 

Sam lays the letter down and fights back tears, wishing he could hate the angel for everything he has done. He needs to think and sitting down here is not helping. Folding the letter away, back into its envelope, he carries it with him back to his room. Carefully pulling the old wooden trunk out from under his bed, he places the letter inside before grabbing his weapons and cleaning supplies. Glancing at his phone on the nightstand, he sees a text from Dean; telling him they are close to the Bunker. He slides his phone in his pocket and heads for the kitchen, he needs light and space to clean his weapons; the familiarity and precision of it has always helped him think.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Olle walks into the kitchen laden with bags and Lucifer follows behind carrying beer; Dean slipped away in the garage, mumbling about a shower and some sleep. Olle slows, dropping everything on the table in the corner, instead of the prep-table, when he notices Sam has an oilcloth spread with weapons, all in different stages of cleaning and disassembly. With a look at Lucifer, the angel nods and, without even a snap, everything is put away and the angel is gone. 

Olle comes up behind his boyfriend, announcing his presence with a soft, “Hey,” before he runs his hands up the hunter's back and massages his shoulders before smoothing them back down to encircle his waist; plastering himself to the smaller man's back. “I missed you,” he rumbles seductively in Sam's ear as he watches him finish cleaning his Taurus and lay it on the oilcloth. 

Sam wraps his arms around Oll's, where they are cinched around his waist, and leans back into his embrace. “I missed you too,” he smiles, a husky laugh rumbling through his chest as Olle kisses behind his ear then licks the sensitive skin along his neck, before pulling Sam's earlobe between his teeth. 

Olle chuckles as Sam arches into the touch. “Come take a shower with me Sammy,” he purrs. Moving one hand down to cup his groin and the other up to the center of his chest, Olle pulls the hunter tighter into him and growls, “I want you to shove me into the corner, right under the water, and fuck me until I scream.”

Sam reaches one hand back to grab Olle's head and pulls the immortal down onto his mouth. Weapons, and worries, forgotten, Sam releases Olle, both men panting, and spins him before shoving him toward the door. “I want to be in you in the next five minutes,” he growls, coming up to plaster himself to the immortal's back before he gives him another shove down the corridor, mostly with his pelvis. Olle groans before grabbing Sam's wrist and pulling him into a fierce kiss; he laces their fingers together and beats a hurried pace through the corridors. 

**

“So,” Olle pants out, still leaned into the corner of the shower with Sam draped over him, “what's with turning the kitchen into the armory?” Sam separates from him, backing toward the front of the shower while Olle turns, mostly to look at his boyfriend, but a little to rinse the mess he just made off the front of him. They are quiet for a long time and Olle reaches for him, pulling him into his arms under the water for a slow kiss. Backing away just enough to maintain eye contact he asks softly, “Sammy? Did something happen while we were gone?” 

Sam pulls out of Olle's embrace and starts to wash his hair before he speaks, “Cabin fever setting in, finally, I guess and just,” he stops to step totally under the water and rinse the shampoo out; Olle cannot help but envy the trails of soap as they sluice down the other man's body. As he reaches for conditioner, Sam goes on, “Lots to think about lately, lots more to worry about, and it feels like it's all starting to catch up with me.” 

They are both quiet, Olle thoughtful, and, when Sam steps out of the water to grab his washcloth, Olle steps under to wash his hair and starts talking, “You don't have to talk to me if you won't want to, Babe, I know it's not something you're used to. But, Dean is going to see that something's bothering you; don't shut him out, okay?” Sam just nods and they finish their shower in leering, companionable silence. 

When they are dressed, Olle leaves Sam to gather his weapons and heads downstairs in search of the angels. He is worried about Beth and Balthazar, she told him they have caught a few non-specific hunts over the past week and have decided to stay in Paris for a while, but he does not think she is telling him everything. He needs to know if Lucifer or Gabriel have heard from either of them.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean walks into the kitchen intent on coffee, he tried to sleep when he first got back, but his mind kept drifting to that poor girl; he knows she was a vampire, but that won't wipe away the memory of her heart pounding away in her open chest or her single fluttering lung fueling the gasping, urgent cries for him to end her. He wound up standing in the shower a long time before continuing to read through the newspaper he picked up in Smith Center. Now, he needs coffee and wants to talk to Sam about a case. 

Seeing his brother standing at the prep-table, though, weapons spread out in front of him, makes him slow to an uneasy stop and stare; the last time Sam spent such focused alone time with his guns, he was spiraling after Cas broke his wall. “Where's Olle?” is his first thought, because the man was eager, to say the least, about seeing his brother again and would been an easy distraction. 

Sam is reassembling his Taurus and he never breaks focus as he answers, “We took a shower and he went downstairs to talk to Luce; he's worried about Beth.”

“Ah,” Dean shakes his head as he moves over to the coffee maker. “Are you okay?” he finally asks his brother. 

“Yeah, I'm fine, why?” Sam asks, laying his gun on the oilcloth and turning to look at his brother. 

Dean turns up his cup, images of that vampire flash through his head, “Past few weeks have been kinda crazy,” is all he says. He sets his cup on the edge of the prep-table and pulls the newspaper out from under his arm, “And you haven't left the Bunker in days, according to Luce.” 

“I said I was fine, Dean,” Sam says defensively. He is in no mood to share with Dean when he knows his brother has been checking up on him, and getting his information from Lucifer. 

“Well, good, because I think I may have found us a case,” is all he says. Smacking the paper against his palm, he holds it up and starts to read, “Harold Miller, sixty five, a resident of Oak Park, an old folks home. He was found yesterday in his room with his head bashed in. Get this, doors were locked and there was no sign of break in.” Dean waits for Sam to say anything, but he has turned back to his weapons so Dean goes on, if just to fill the silence, “Ghost? Demonic possession?” he throws out there as possibilities. “I figure it's worth a look,” he says moving around to get in his brother's line of sight. “What do you think? Oh, and best part is, Oak Park is fifteen minutes from here,” he is really trying to engage Sam, but the man won't even make eye contact. Dean shakes his head, “It's in our backyard,” he smiles encouragingly when Sam stops what he is doing and turns to him.

“What about The Darkness?” Sam wonders, almost angry and Dean's smile falters. “What about Cas?” he asks more gently but no less seriously.

“Okay, first of all,” Dean says, not giving in to Sam's desire to pick a fight with him about the whole Darkness situation, “we've got zero on Amara. And Cas,” he shakes his head, “Cas'll be fine, he always is, and Luce is working on that as hard as Gabe is on Amara.” 

“Yeah Dean, okay,” Sam relents, putting his weapons down and taking the paper from his brother. “Let's go check it out.”

**

While Sam finishes reassembling and packing away his weapons, Dean grabs breakfast. The older man watches his brother the whole time; something is bothering him and Dean is determined to figure out how to help. If Sam's issues happen to be a distraction for Dean's own, well, he will let them, for now; he knows they won't be for long. 

Dressed and ready before Sam, as usual, Dean makes his way downstairs in search of Olle. Finding the immortal with Lucifer and Gabriel, he drops across from the archangels and asks, “What happened with Sammy while we were gone?”

Gabriel shakes his head, never looking up from the book he is reading, “I haven't left this room since the day after Christmas, I got no clue. Kid's always been a few cards short of a full deck, what's eating him now?”

To the shock and amusement of everyone, Lucifer smacks his brother in the back of the head while looking at him like he is an idiot, before he turns to Dean, “When we aren't researching, he and Cas train a few hours every day; yoga and general hand to hand. But,” Lucifer admits, “I don't believe he has been sleeping very well.”

Olle runs his hand through his hair, “He said he is just trying to process everything. I'm not sure I believe him, but he won't talk to me.” The immortal turns to Dean, “He told me he'd talk to you.”

Dean chuckles, “You've still got a lot to learn about him if you think he'll just share and care when it's his issues we're talking about.” 

Dean looks uneasy, so Olle asks, “Where are you headed all decked out?” He gives the hunter an appreciative once over and intends to follow him upstairs so he can do the same, and more, to Sam. 

“Man,” Dean says standing to pull his coat around him like a shield, “you get you perving on me when I know what you were doing an hour ago is not cool; right?”

Olle laughs, so do both angels; though, they make sure Dean does not notice, “Can't help but window shop now and then Dean; I'm dating, I'm not dead. Besides,” he says getting up to follow Dean out of the room and back upstairs, “there's no comparison, for me, between the two of you; Sammy wins, hands down.”

Dean nods, mollified, but he does not know if he should be offended so he just does not speak and lets Olle follow him upstairs. 

“Now, where are you headed?” Olle wonders again, on the elevator ride upstairs. 

“Caught a case,” Dean answers, “from the newspaper this morning. It's just out the road, Oak Park, looks like a spirit; shouldn't take long.”

Olle nods, “Get him back in the saddle, it may help.” Dean silently agrees as they head for the garage. 

Sam is waiting for him and, he notes, the look, grope, and searing kiss the immortal gives his brother is definitely more than Dean has had in a while. He keeps telling himself he is not envious, just glad his brother finally has someone, when that is all Sammy has ever wanted; a normality to his life that being with Olle gives him. 

“Please wear the bracelet I gave you Sammy,” Olle says intently, before kissing him again. 

Sam nods, shy, dimpled grin on his face, “I've got it right here,” he holds up his hand before running it through Olle's hair and pulling him down for one quick kiss. 

Olle nods and steps away from him so Sam can open his door. “You guys pray if you need anything, anything,” Olle says seriously. Dean shakes his head as he backs out of his spot and Olle turns to head back inside.


	7. Chapter 7

Sam has been thinking, until he feels like his head will explode if he has to dredge up one more memory or rehash one more feeling he thought he had already done to death. Lucifer's letter rocked him in a way he has not been since he realized Ruby betrayed him and he opened the Cage; thereby betraying not only Dean but Creation. He played Michael to Dean's Lucifer then but now, they are in their proper place; Dean pulling away and Sam grasping at straws to keep him while holding Creation together by a thread. They are all going to die when Dean turns away from him for her and there is nothing any of them can do about it; not this time. Killing Dean won't even keep him away from her, because, as she consumes Creation, she will find him; wherever Billie puts him. And, he huffs a quiet, desperate laugh into the window as Dean drives, isn't it just a testament to how far they have come that he is thinking about saving his brother by killing him?

Olle, and knowing what Olle really is, may be the only thing holding him together right now. As long as Olle and Beth are okay, Creation is still okay. 

Dean turns the corner and pulls into the drive in front of Oak Park. Sam takes a slow look around, it looks just like any other apartment building, but there are wheelchair ramps and an orderly wheeling an elderly man down the sidewalk. It is cheery, though, and Sam figures it is more a retirement community than an old folks home. As he gets out of the Impala, he takes a deep breath and shifts all his wandering thoughts and panic-filled assumptions to the back of his mind; so he can focus on the case. 

When Dean comments on making a reservation, though, Sam says the first thing that comes to mind and immediately regrets it, “Yeah, we should be so lucky to live long enough.” He refuses to take it back, however, and precedes his brother inside. 

**

Dean stares hard at Sam's back as he walks inside the building. What, he wonders, is up with his little brother? Normally, he is all about the light at the end of what Dean sees as a never ending tunnel of saving people, hunting things. Lately, though, Sam has been drifting further and further down a path Dean always thought, always wanted to walk alone. 

Sam is all business when Dean catches up to him, talking to the woman at the front desk, flashing his badge, and asking to speak to whomever is in charge. Dean lingers a few steps behind, trying to get a feel for his brother's mood via body language, but all he sees is what Sam projects to those around him; a big man trying to seem small as he does a hard job, and does it well, while carrying the weight that inevitably comes with such responsibility. It never occurs to Dean to realize that this is who Sam really is. 

When Arthur, the director, gives Sam a key to Harold's room, Dean stays with the man while Sam checks out the crime scene. He tries to shift into FBI mode while Arthur speaks, and he manages to pay attention to what the man says, even asking pertinent questions, but he is still thinking about Sam and what he said about Amara and Cas; are they wasting time here when they have more important things to worry about? 

When Arthur introduces him to Mildred, he is brought out of his wondering thoughts by the slow, interested once over he has been getting from women, and men, since he was about fifteen; he follows her with his eyes until she disappears around a corner, wondering if she is the oldest woman to ever look at him like that. It has been a while since anyone has looked him like that, anyone not Amara anyway. The fact that she crowds into his mind in such a way is confusing and frightening, it is easy to say he wants nothing to do with her, but hard to convince himself of that fact when she is right in front of him. He turns back to Arthur, shakes his head a bit, and tries to focus. The whole thing throws him off balance enough that he has no trouble shifting his thoughts firmly onto the case. 

When Arthur tells Dean about Harold's long list of enemies, he is quick to ask for more information, as well as access to information about other residents who have recently died. Making his way to the first floor employee break room, Dean starts to shift through the files Arthur gave him and quickly comes up with one glaring suspect in the angry spirit department. 

When Sam drops a hand full of prescription bottles on what he is reading, Dean looks up at his brother. 

“Looks like Harold was steeling the other patient's Viagra,” Sam says judgmentally, as he folds himself into his chair, adjusting his jacket. 

Dean tries to lighten the mood with his next statement, “I know. It's a real dick move, huh?” he smirks. Sam does not even shake his head like he is trying to hide his amusement so Dean starts sitting the bottles up in front of him and an idea comes to him as he speaks. 

Handing Sam Jake Townsend's file, he slips the heaviest bottle into his jacket; he knows Sam saw him, but, again, his brother is all business and refuses to say anything. 

Once they have discovered where Jake is buried, Arthur is very helpful with that as well, they head back to the Bunker to change clothes. Sam is quiet all the way back. Once Baby is parked in her space in the garage, Dean finally says something, “Man, what's wrong with you, huh?” Sam does not say anything, but he does not get out of the car either so Dean goes on, “I mean, I go away for a week and you were fine when I left. What happened?” He is turned sideways in the seat, knee bent up and arm draped over the steering wheel to look at his brother intently, waiting for an answer. 

Sam does not make eye contact so Dean knows, right away, he is lying; it is something the kid has done since he was old enough to know what a lie is. “I'm fine Dean.” Sam huffs a laugh but still does not look his brother in the eye, “ Why do you keep asking me? Are you okay?” he makes eye contact now, curious and accusing.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean thinks about lying, just shaking his head and pushing Sam to talk about himself, but that girl's face is stuck in his mind; the relieved look in her eyes as her head rolled off the table. “Something happened in New Mexico,” Dean finally admits. “We were chasing this nest, fifteen or twenty strong, and it was easy,” he shakes his head here, turning to take hold of Baby's wheel and stare out the front. “We figured Amara had gotten to a few of them, but there was no sign of her. After taking out over half of them, we split up.” Dean turns to look at his brother then, white knuckle grip on the wheel never faltering, “Just hunting stragglers, seven or eight left. I heard crying, laughing.” He turns away again, “These vampires cared too much about their nest.” He shakes his head, “She had to have gotten to them.” He flexes his hands so hard it makes the leather creek and stares hard, at something Sam can't see, through the windshield, “I thought I'd seen it all Sam, thought I'd done most of it too,” he shakes his head again, dazed by the memory, “but what they did to her.” He trails off, doing a full body shake, before turning to Sam, “It was bad Sammy,” his voice is rough with emotion, “and not something I'm gonna forget easy.” He rubs his hands over his face before looking hard at Sam, “But that don't mean something ain't bothering you.”

**

Sam is stuck, he should have just gotten out of the car and gone inside, but he didn't and now there is this awful thing hanging in the air between them. What, he wonders, is he supposed to say to his brother? Taking a deep breath, he looks Dean in the eye and tells him, “That's fucking awful Dean, man,” he shakes his head. “I'm sorry,” he reaches out to grip his brother's bicep. “I know,” he sighs, “I know I can talk to you Dean. I just,” he shrugs, “I don't have anything to talk about.” With that, he gets out of the car and makes straight for his room. 

Once he is alone in his room, Sam leans against the door and sighs. How is he supposed to talk to Dean about this? Dean won't actually talk to him, not really, not about Amara and that, more than anything, worries him. Trying to get Dean to have a conversation about how he feels about her, and how frightened Sam is about his feelings, is not going to happen easily. 

Pulling at his tie, Sam moves away from the door to find clothes better suited to grave desecration. 

**

Dean slams Baby's door a little harder than he normally would and stalks through the Bunker to his room. Pulling out street clothes, he is still wracking his brain over Sam; what is bothering his little brother? He changes quickly while he thinks; Lucifer said Sam has not been sleeping, Olle said he was out of it when they got back, he needs to talk to Cas because Lucifer also said they had been training together daily. Dropping on the bed to tie his boots, Dean decides to find his best friend as soon as he is done here and see if he can shed some light on the situation. 

With only three places the angel could likely be, Dean checks his new room first since it is on his way to the elevator; unfortunately, Cas' room is empty. Linda and Kevin are in the main library and neither of them have seen Cas all day so he makes for Gabriel's research room, where he and Lucifer are walking around what Sam assured him weeks ago is not the Rosetta Stone just a similar, larger artifact while they argue back and forth in Enochian; Cas nowhere to be seen. The next door down is where Lucifer has been compiling information about Cas and the restoration and healing of his Grace, he goes in to find the angel sitting at the back of the room reading. 

“Hello Dean,” he intones as the hunter closes the door behind him. 

“Hey Cas,” Dean smiles a little as he makes his way to a seat across from his friend. 

Putting his book down, the angel watches him for a few quiet moments before he asks, “Is something wrong?”

Dean just shrugs, “Has Sam been acting different lately? Something's up with him and he's not talking.”

Cas tilts his head to the side and Dean can tell he is thinking; contrary to what Sam says, the angel does not always make the same face or turn his head the same way, there are subtle variations. “He was worried about you, I believe, because you were hunting without him. But,” he shrugs, “he said you were as safe as you could be with Olle there to back you up.” 

“Okay,” Dean says drawing the word out while he mulls the situation over. Could he just be angry with Dean for so willingly leaving him behind to hunt with Olle? Dean had wanted his brother to come along, with or without the immortal, but Sam was insistent they go alone; he even suggested they take Olle's new truck to field test the warding. He shakes his head, “Was there anything else? Did something happen while I was gone? Has he,” Dean gets a paniced thought, “has he been alone with Lucifer?” It isn't that he does not trust the angel now, a hell of a lot more than he ever thought he would, but, after everything that happened between them, the smallest thing could fuck with Sam's head. 

Cas is quick to answer, though, shaking his head in denial, “Someone is always with them.” He smiles ruefully, “I think Lucifer goes out of his way not to be alone with him. I don't know if it's for Sam's benefit or his own, but I don't believe they've been alone together since they were inside Sam's head.”

Dean nods, slapping his hands on the table as he stands, “Looks like I'm just going to have to beat it out of him, then.” 

“Dean,” Cas admonishes, “don't you think you're both a little too old for that?”

The hunter smiles, “How old are your brothers?” The angel laughs, warming Dean from the inside as, with a nod to his friend, he makes his way back to the elevator. 

Walking through the War Room, Dean sees Sam at a library table, laptop open while he scribbles on a legal pad. He stops to watch his brother while Sam thinks no one is around. He looks tired, and distracted, so Dean bypasses him and makes for the kitchen; it is lunch time anyway. He will let his brother stew for a while and see what comes of it.


	9. Chapter 9

Olle is cooking something that smells amazing as Dean comes down the steps, into the kitchen. He grabs a beer and pulls a bag of pizza rolls from the freezer. As he pours them on a plate to microwave, Olle asks, “Did you talk to Sam?”

Dean huffs a laugh and turns to the table, where Olle just sat with his food, “Something's bothering him,” he admits, “but he keeps trying to turn it around on me.”

Olle nods his head, taking his first bite out of what Dean sees is an omelette. “Did you talk to him?” the immortal wants to know. “About New Mexico?” he is worried about Dean and hoping the hunter will confide in his brother. 

“Nothing to talk about,” Dean says immediately. “I told him what happened and he agreed, it's awful, but nothing I haven't seen before. Nothing I haven't done,” he finishes quietly, turning to pull his lunch from the microwave before grabbing another beer and dropping opposite Olle at the table. 

“There are things you don't know, about the things I've done, Dean,” Olle says slowly, looking up at the hunter seriously. “If you ever need to talk to me, ever want to know, I'll tell you, I'll listen.” He takes a bite of his food and thinks for a moment, while Dean eats quietly, before he says, “You won't like any of it, and you'll hate me when it's done, but you can talk to me and I'll do what I can to help you look past it.” 

Dean laughs, mouth full, and wonders, “You're acting like my shitty choices and everything done to get me to Hell was your fault?”

Olle laughs too, “Prophecy, fate, none of it was my fault, but I sometimes feel like I should have done things differently so it wouldn't have been so horrible.”

“Nah man, what Alistair did to me had nothing to do with you,” he says grabbing his plate and his beer as he heads for the door. “I'm gonna go talk to Sam, we gotta salt-and-burn this guy later so we need to gear up.”

Olle does not speak, wonders if Dean would feel the same way if he knew the whole truth about what he did in Hell. As the older Winchester leaves, he feels like a coward and liar for not coming clean. 

**

Dean drops across from his brother in the library and asks, “Did you eat yet?”

Sam shakes his head, not looking up from whatever he is reading, “No, I was going to grab something when I'm done here.”

Dean just nods and picks up a pizza roll, “Want some?” he asks offering it to Sam. 

His brother looks up then, but shakes his head, “No thanks Dean, Olle bought apples and there's cheese and organic peanut butter.”

Dean just nods and goes back to his food. They sit in silence until Dean is done eating and he finally asks, “What time do you wanna leave? It'll take a couple hours to get to the cemetery.”

“I figured we'd head out after dinner,” Sam says putting his book down and standing. Dean follows his brother down the hall, back to the kitchen. “Linda is supposed to be making dinner and I already told her we'd be here,” Sam says while Dean dumps his plate in the sink and grabs another beer. 

“Awesome,” Dean says, watching his brother cut a wedge of cheese and grab an apple and a spoon before dropping at the table with his food and the jar of peanut butter; it is tiny and glass and Dean is sure it was expensive. He chuckles to himself and wonders how he failed to notice his brother is a hipster; he would blame Olle, but he remembers the Farmer's Market Sam drug him to right after he got back from Purgatory and shakes his head. “Do you,” he asks, “want to ask Olle to come with us?” The idea of having a third person help dig up Jake Towsend's grave is appealing and he figures the two can team up against Sam and get him to talk. 

Sam shakes his head, though, spoon still in his mouth, and pulls it out to snap off a piece of apple and says, around his lunch, “We can do it; we always have. Besides,” he shrugs, “Olle's busy helping Lucifer with Cas.”

Dean nods, no help then, he figures, with grave digging or wrangling Sam's emotions. With nothing else, really, to talk about, Dean says, “I'm gonna go give Baby a once over and make sure we've got everything we need.”

Sam just nods, mouth full, and Dean heads out. 

**

Dinner is what Dean has come to expect as normal over the past two months. Everyone chats ideally over whatever they happen to be working on and it is easy to step back and see a family; even though the idea makes Dean uncomfortable. He had a family once, one that all sat together and had dinner, but it was taken away from him and every time he has tried to recreate that feeling, that family, those people are ripped away too; often in several different pieces. It makes him uncomfortable because he cannot believe he is actually starting to worry about Balthazar, Gabriel, and Lucifer dying. Then he thinks about Amara and how easy everything seems to be with her. She frightens him and makes him feel like he has absolutely no control over anything, but that loss of control, that fear, is overshadowed by her steel boned conviction that they will be together and she will have whatever it is she has always wanted. More and more, he just wants to give himself over to her will; only fighting against it to protect Sam and not sure how much longer he can continue to do so. 

He tries to shake off his thoughts and listen to Sam tell Olle about the case they are working, and watch Linda joke with Lucifer about something he missed when he was distracted. Gabriel even came upstairs, finally, and joined them for the first time since Christmas. They are talking, now, about Beth and Balthazar hunting in Europe, and how he and Olle are both worried she is not telling them something. 

“You could always go check on them,” Dean says after finishing the last of his dinner, sitting back to drain the dregs of his beer. 

Olle shakes his head, “Not until I'm really worried. She won't do anything to put Baz in danger without telling someone. I trust her.”

Lucifer agrees, “She hasn't been comfortable here for a while and the time away might just be her trying to figure out where she fits that's not just in Balthazar's bed.”

Everyone is quiet, thinking about what the archangel just said and, while Dean has no idea how she feels, he has seen her training, teaching, Linda, the angels, even him and Sam; he has never questioned that she belongs here or what her role is. And there is no question Kevin has made her a hacker on par, nearly, with Charlie. That thought makes him smile, sadly, to himself at the thought of how over the moon Charlie would be if she were here; she loved Cas and there is no question in his mind that Balthazar would have a fight on his hands over who got sleep with Beth. Pulling himself out of his maudlin thoughts, he turns to Sam, “Hey Sammy, you ready to go?”

Sam nods, “Sure Dean.” He turns to Olle to tell his boyfriend goodbye.

Dean is up and out of the room before he gets that uneasy feeling he refuses to admit is envy. “I'll meet you in the garage,” he says in the doorway.


	10. Chapter 10

“You need to find a way to talk to him about whatever's bothering you,” Olle tells Sam quietly as the hunter leans in to kiss him. “He's not going to leave it alone and I'm starting to worry. Please Sammy?” Sam nods seriously before taking Olle's mouth. When Sam stands, the immortal trails his hand along Sam's arm to keep touching him as long as possible and the hunter gives his hand a squeeze before letting it go and heading for the garage. 

Sam programs the cemetery address into his phone and plugs headphones into his laptop while Dean drives, he does not want to talk to his brother; not right now, not about this, even though Olle is right and Dean is not going to let it go. What, though, he wonders while only half listening to a 44 part series of podcasts dedicated to serial killers in history, is he supposed to say to get this conversation started? 'Hey Dean, I'm worried that you'll turn away from me like Michael did Lucifer and run off with Amara; letting her destroy Creation.' All he can think is Dean will get defensive and angry; then they will end up fighting instead of talking. He tries to shake himself out his thoughts and actually tune into what he is listening to; he has often wondered if Manuel Romasanta was a skin-walker, werewolf, or just a serial killer.

When they get to the cemetery, Dean disappears looking for the backhoe while Sam starts to cut and roll the grass on top of the grave. When his brother gets back, on foot, Sam turns from rolling the last of the grass up and asks, “What's up?” 

Dean grabs a shovel and starts to dig before answering, “I got past the security and around the cameras, but the damn thing's broken. The bucket's been pulled off and it's sitting in pieces behind the shed.”

Sam just sighs and grabs his own shovel. 

After hours of digging silently together, Dean crawls out of the grave. He tried, more than once, to start a conversation with his brother, but the back-breaking work of digging in hard packed earth made any real conversation difficult around panting breaths. He figures Sam wouldn't have talked to him anyway, he wouldn't even turn and face him while they dug. Pulling a beer out of the cooler, Dean sits on the top while Sam looks, incredulously, at his brother. Panting, feeling his age, even the years in Hell and Purgatory, Dean waves a hand at Sam, “You got this, come on, you're doing great.” They have been digging around the vault for almost an hour, he is going to have to grab the tools to break it open, anyway. 

Sam just shakes his head and keeps digging, pulling dirt away from the locks on the vault. Dean takes a long drink of his beer and starts their conversation with a mundane question not about Sam's ventures in weapons maintenance. “So, no retirement, huh?”

“Hey,” his brother answers, “you're the one who's always wanted to go out Blaze of Glory style; preferably while the Bon Jovi song was playing.”

“Well, I am a candle in the wind,” Dean responds before going on seriously. “Yeah, but the way you said it, it was like that Blaze of Glory was going to happen sooner rather than later.” He looks at Sam seriously as his brother slows his digging, thoughtfully. “You okay?” he needs to know. 

Sam stops digging altogether and thinks for a few long seconds before he answers truthfully, “No I'm not actually, not at all.” He is standing on Jake Townsend's vault, staring at nothing Dean can see before he shakes his head, still refusing to look at his brother, “Everything that's happened lately, finding out about Lucifer, how he is and why he was the way he was, it, it brought stuff up; stuff I thought I'd forgot about.” Sam goes back to digging. 

Dean watches him for a long moment before asking, “Wanna talk about it?”

Sam shakes his head. “No,” he says easily before going back to digging. 

Dean has to say his peace, try to ease Sam's mind a little, “Well look, Lucifer,” he shakes his head, “I never thought I'd say I trust him, but I do. He isn't who he was. Gabriel too. I trust all of them. The things they've done,” Dean shakes his head. “I know what carrying the Mark is and I know he did the best he could, as long as he was able, before he lost that fight. As for what's happening now, we're gonna figure this out. Gabe is gonna find a way to stop Amara and Luce and Olle are gonna fix Cas. So,” he shakes his hand at his brother in a gesture of finality, “case closed, period. And so is this one,” he says standing when Sam's shovel hits the edge of the vault. 

Grabbing the tools he needs to open the vault, Dean jumps back down into the grave while Sam clambers out to rest. Once the vault is off, Dean pulls it out of the grave and Sam goes back in to open the casket. As they are pouring salt and gasoline on Jake's well preserved body, Dean says, “Kinda nice being back on the case, huh? Get your mind off things?”

Sam just shakes his head, “Just burn the bones so we can go home.” Hours of thinking have made Sam realize he needs to talk to Lucifer, and Gabriel, about Amara and about everything that came after.

Dean stares hard at his brother before nodding, realizing there is more to Sam's thoughtful, withdrawn attitude than he is telling, and lights the matches. Throwing them in the grave, they watch the fire burn itself out before doing their best to make it look like nothing happened and head back to the Bunker; each man in thoughtful silence. 

By the time they have re-buried Jake's burnt corpse and made the long drive back to the Bunker, the sun is nearly up. As Sam is sliding into bed, his phone rings. Picking up, he gets out only a curious, “Hello,” before finding out Jake Townsend is not who they were hunting. 

Getting off the phone, Sam is glad he told Olle to ask Lucifer to sit with him while he slept last night. He calls Dean and, turning on the speaker, throws the phone on the bed while he pulls out his suit. Telling his brother Oak Park's director, Arthur, was killed last night, means he meets Dean in garage and they head back out to find out what is really killing people.


	11. Chapter 11

Watching Dean with Mildred Baker makes Sam smile, she is obviously smitten with his brother and Dean seems totally oblivious. Then, when she refuses to let go of his hand, uncomfortable, but he notices, too, the young maintenance woman across the room. Leaving his brother to get more details from Ms. Baker, Sam excuses himself to speak to the young woman who has been watching them for the past half hour. 

Marlene, he realizes, is deaf and seems to have no information about either of the murders. After confirming she was not working either night, Sam apologizes for his admittedly terrible sign language and returns to Dean. He wonders, vaguely, if, of all the languages Olle speaks, he can sign as well and endeavors to ask his boyfriend when they are finished here and can go home. Dean decides to return to the Impala for his tablet and search the Bunker's records as well as lore while Sam contacts the coroner for information about the first victim's autopsy. If Mildred is correct and the creature fed on Arthur, Harold would have similar injuries. 

Sam walks across the street to the small cafe and gets himself a coffee and something for breakfast while he calls the coroner. Leaving a message, he watches Dean through the window as he digs through Baby's trunk and wonders how to talk to him about Amara. He is tempted to grab his brother some food, but sees there is no need when Mildred appears on the bench closest to Dean with coffee and donuts for two. Sam chuckles to himself, watching Dean sit with the older woman, who is not unattractive; his brother keeps a good foot and a half between them but he talks to her while drinking his coffee and, Sam notices, they share several smiles and she even manages to make his brother laugh more than once. 

Sam has noticed his brother avoiding him and Olle, especially when they are affectionate with each other. For a while, Sam was worried Dean was uncomfortable with Sam's sexuality. While Dean and Olle were in New Mexico, however, Cas pointed out the possibility Dean could be envious of Sam's relationship. As far fetched as that sounded to begin with, Sam thinks it is a probably true. Dean seems genuinely glad Sam and Olle are together and has no problems working with the immortal or being around him; he just always seems to find something else to do when the two of them are being affectionate, holding hands or sharing a chaste kiss or even sharing personal space. Sam understands and has tried not to flaunt his relationship in front of his brother; Dean hasn't been with anyone more than a few hours since Lisa and, despite his brother's threats, Sam thinks of her, and Ben, often. He will never tell Dean this, but he has kept track of them. Ben will be graduating from college this year and has already been accept into a Master's program at MIT. His mother has been married for a few years now and has had another baby. When he and Dean were brought face to face with their grandfather, Henry, a few years ago, he was tempted to discover Ben's true parentage because, the older the boy gets, the more like Henry he looks. 

Brought out of his wondering thoughts by the sound of his phone, Sam realizes his breakfast is gone, his coffee is cold, and Dean is no longer in front of the building. Looking at the screen, Sam sees it is the coroner returning his call and, answering, gets up to make his way back across the street and find his brother. 

Walking into the same room he found Dean in yesterday, Sam hangs up with the coroner and finds his brother sitting at the same table. “So, according to the coroner, part of Harold's frontal lobe was missing.”

“And that tracks with Banshees,” Dean says while Sam puts his phone in his pocket. 

“I thought Banshees were good?” Sam wonders. Dean starts to talk and Sam sits while his brother explains the difference between true fairy Ban Side, the flaming haired fairy who keens as a death omen, and a tortured spirit Banshee who uses piercing screams to drive her victims mad before consuming their brains. 

Once Dean has decided to return to the Bunker for the needed gold blades, Sam makes his way through the building, back to Arthur's office, and starts searching records for who the Banshee could be searching for next. 

**

“Why are you pushing this so fucking hard right now?” Gabriel barks at his brother. 

Lucifer sighs, he has been trying to give Gabriel time, a chance to adjust, but there is too much at stake for him to back out now. “Because,” he tells his brother for what feels like the hundred thousandth time, “we are getting nowhere in finding a way to restore him that he doesn't reject outright! If he cannot be restored, he still needs to be given back his memories Gabriel!” They have been arguing for days, back and forth, about Amara and about Castiel. Lucifer is at his wits end with his obstinate little brother; if he cannot make Gabriel see sense soon, he may just have to beat him into submission on this one and, truth be told, he is not sure he can best Gabriel in a fair fight. He also, though, has no idea how to go about restoring Cas' memory, so he has to make Gabriel see how important this is. 

“You told me I didn't have to make him remember until he was restored!” his brother says adamantly. “If you can't juice him back up, his knowing won't make a difference!”

Lucifer does not want to be mean, but he has to tell his brother what he feels. “You're terrified Gabriel and I understand that, I do,” he wills his brother to believe him. “You don't want to lose what you have with him right now by making him remember what he gave up, what he took from you, in the beginning. But your cowardice is going to cost us! He will be valuable, even without his Grace, because he had your ear and he will remember things from a different perspective!”

Gabriel is mean when he is hurt and he lashes out now, “If you could have Michael back, right now, as lost and broken is Cas is, would want to give him back what he'd lost? Knowing what he did, would do, would you make him remember or would you keep with safe, keep him with you?”

Lucifer lashes out now too, done playing games with his little brother, “I killed him, didn't I? To protect all of you! To protect him! He's gone, and I never get to have him back, because I loved him enough to keep him whole instead of watch him be destroyed!”

Gabriel is rendered speechless by what Lucifer says, which is a good thing because, when he is done saying it, the devil vanishes to parts unknown.


	12. Chapter 12

Lucifer reappears as far away from his brother as he can actually get and still be within the safety of the Bunker's warding. Noticing he is in a empty room with a table and few boxes, he unleashes his temper for the first time since he was freed of the Mark. 

**

Dean hears the crashing as he comes down the stairs and, out of habit, pulls his gun. Making his way through the halls, he finds the source of the commotion is a storage room in the furthest corridor. With a deep breath, he kicks the door open, “Hey!” When he sees the blond archangel slumped in a chair, facing away from him, shoulders hunched, heaving in exertion, he blurts, “Luce, what the Hell are you doing man?”

With a sigh, the angel runs a hand through his hair and without turning, says simply, “Hello Dean.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Dean says putting his gun away. “I know I've been gone for days, but when did you start wrecking things? What's going on?”

“I'm sorry,” the devil says genuinely contrite as he stands, leaning on the table. With another sigh, he turns to face the hunter. 

“Uh,” Dean looks confused and curious, waving his arms in a pleading gesture. “What, what are you doing?”

“We just keep looking for a spell, something, to draw Amara out, to help Cas, but,” he shrugs his shoulders helplessly, “there's nothing. We had her in our sights,” he says angrily. “She was hurt, we should have ended it!”

“Wait,” Dean says moving closer to him, “what? How?” Dean wants to know; hoping they have found something. 

Lucifer shakes his head, “Sending Cas, just to avoid detection, was,” he sighs, “was the right thing to do, but it feels cowardly in hindsight. I don't know what else we could have done, but,” he shakes his head frustrated, “there has to be something! I mean, how many more chances are we going to get?”

“Yeah, I know,” Dean admits. Shaking his head, he goes on, “Saying you're going to kill her's one thing but actually doing it is something totally different.” 

Lucifer turns calm, calculating eyes on the hunter, Dean's tone is one of guilt and admission. “What do you mean?” he demands curiously. 

“I've had two shots at Amara,” he confesses with a shake of his head, “I struck out both times.”

“What are you talking about?” he wonders, turning all of his focus on the man in front of him. He knows the Mark will draw them together, knows Dean will have difficulty resisting her, and needs to know how quickly the man is losing this battle of wills. 

Dean shakes his head, shocked he is willing to admit this to the archangel, “I don't even know where to start.” 

“Dean,” Lucifer says delicately, “tell me everything.”

Dean takes a deep breath and reminds himself Lucifer will understand.

**

Sam takes a deep breath outside Mildred Baker's door and knocks, hoping telling her what is going on is a good idea. When the woman bids him enter, he does. Closing the door behind himself he is taken with her happy attitude and the excitement in her eyes when she asks about Dean. “He'll, uh, he'll be back soon,” Sam answers, wondering if it would be a better idea to let his brother explain it all to her. When he closes the door, Sam notices a framed poster on the wall and has to ask, “Is this you?”

She smiles, “Yes, that was a long time ago,” she admits before going on with a grin, “That was before I got so good lookin'.”

Sam smiles and sits when she offers. Despite the size of her cups, Sam refuses tea and decides to get straight to the point, “Ms. Baker,”

“Please,” she cuts him off with a wave of her hands, “Mildred.” 

“Mildred,” Sam corrects himself. “I need to, uh, be honest with you. My partner and I, we're not really FBI.” Watching her, he waits for her face to turn down in a frown, but she is all open, happy attention. “We're brothers and we hunt monsters,” he admits seriously. 

Her excitement startles him a little when she say, “I knew it! I knew it, you two are too cute to be FBI.” Sam smiles at her easy acceptance and she continues, “And I knew that damn ghost I saw years ago was real.” 

Sam decides to move on, maybe asking her about the ghost later, picking up the tablet, he turns on the screen and, handing it to Mildred, asks, “Does this, does it look familiar?”

“Oh my God, yes,” is her answer as she looks at the screen. “It's a Banshee?”

“It is,” Sam says. “Banshees scream at their victims,” he tells her, taking back the tablet, “getting them to harm themselves and then they feed on their, uh,” 

“Brains,” Mildred finishes for him. 

Sam nods, “Right. Now, Banshees pray on the vulnerable. So, I checked all the residents medical records and,” he wants to be delicate, but goes on, “you have an atrial-fibrilation which can be treated with meds, but it means that,” 

Again, she finishes for him, “I'm vulnerable?” Sam merely nods his head before she wonders, “Am I next?” 

Confidently, he answers her, “My brother and I are not going to let that happen.” She shakes her head as if she has been offered the same reassurance before and been woefully let down, but Sam has to tell her, “We are going to protect you.” As Mildred looks down at the table Sam goes on, telling her what she needs to know to feel safe, “Now, Banshees only hunt at night so, you're safe right now, okay? We really need you to try and get some rest while you can. We'll be back.” When she is quiet, Sam does not know what else to say so he gets up to leave. As he reaches for the door, though, he thinks to ask her, “One more thing, do you know a housekeeper named Marlene? She's deaf,” he offers as a description. 

Mildred gets a confused look on her face and answers, “I think maybe you got your names mixed up. There is one person on staff named Marlene, but she's on vacation.”

Sam is curious, now, about the dark haired woman who was paying far too much attention to them earlier. Could she be the Banshee?

Mildred goes on before Sam can do more than run that thought through his head, “Agent Butler, my granddaughter is deaf and I could really use some practice signing. So, if there is a staff member that's deaf, I would love to talk to them.”

Her sincerity makes Sam hesitant to offer up his theory. All he does is say, “So would I,” before leaving to find this Marlene and see who she really is.


	13. Chapter 13

Finding Marlene is easy enough, Sam follows her through the corridors and, finally, into a dark room. He has no idea, pushing the door open, what he is going to do if she is the Banshee. He hopes, as he turns the light on, Olle's bracelet will offer him some protection. Coming further into the laundry room, Sam sees no sign of Marlene, but notices an old Celtic symbol painted, in what looks like blood, on one of the water heaters. 

When whatever Marlene does has him stuck fast to the symbol, he struggles to free himself and, the closer she gets the more worried he becomes. He has the fleeting thought he could pray to Gabriel for assistance, but, immediately, the idea rankles. When the woman starts to speak, he realizes she must be a hunter. She is wielding a golden blade and stalking toward him, accusing him of being the Banshee. “Wait, what?” he wonders, when it all comes together. When she says she read Dean's lips, Sam realizes she only got part of the conversation. “No, no, no, no!” he gets out as she raises her blade. “You're mixed up, you're mixed up, we're not Banshees! We're hunters! He's my brother! We're, we're all hunting the same thing!” As she gives in, but does not lower her blade, Sam offers, “Look, test me. Test me, please,” reaching out his hand. When the blade slices along his palm, he cringes, but no burning, no evidence he is anything but human. After a frantic few moments where he is unsure what she will do, the woman unmakes her binding symbol and releases Sam. 

After introductions, Sam finds out Eileen Leahy is the woman pretending to be Marlene. When she tells him this Banshee killed her parents, he understands her anger and feels her pain. Realizing Eileen, like he and Dean, are legacies within the Men of Letters, he is excited by the potential of including another person in the newly revived organization. “What was your grandfather's name?” he needs to know, pulling out his phone to call Dean. 

**

Dean shakes his head seriously, tone confused and ashamed as the speaks to Lucifer, “I mean, I tried to kill her, but I don't know what happened.”

“Well,” Lucifer says, giving Dean plenty of space to work out what he wants to say. He continues to clean up his mess, trying to offer a possible excuse, “The two of you are connected somehow by the Mark.”

Dean knows the devil's implication is that this connection is what prevented Dean from killing her. He rubs the back of his neck, though, wondering if confession really is good for the soul, and admits, “Yeah, no, uh, it's, uh, it's more than that.”

Lucifer turns from where he is picking up a box of files he scattered earlier, to look at the hunter, who seems ashamed and bashful. “Attraction?” he asks, knowing how Michael felt about her and figuring Dean may well feel the same pull. The look on the hunter's face is all the admission he needs and he shakes his head, walking closer to him, hoping to offer comfort without judgment and not knowing how he comes off, “Dean,” he starts but the hunter stops him with a shake of his head. 

“I know,” Dean admits, understanding how impossible the whole situation is. “I know, alright, okay. I mean, whatever it is, attraction, connection,” he shakes his head, “I gotta tell you man, it scares me. I don't know that I can stop it. I don't know that I can resist it.” he trails off, looking down and jerks his head up quickly when the angel reaches a hand out to his shoulder. 

“It scares me too. It scared me too. I was never drawn to her like that, but Michael was. He pushed us all way for her, even Father. But,” Lucifer has to remind him, “he never tried to resist her. You, you have Sam, you have friends and family who care about you and want to help you. This is not an impossible situation Dean. We will find out what this is, I promise. In the end,” he has to admit, “this could be a good thing. It may help draw her out.”

Dean just nods his head, unconvinced, and tells the devil, “I gotta go grab some gold blades. We figured out what we're dealing with and it's all about waiting for her to show herself.”

“Good Dean,” Lucifer says going back to cleaning up his mess. “If you need anything,” he starts. 

“I know,” Dean cuts in good naturedly, “just a pray away.” Both chuckle as Dean starts to leave the room. Turning back to the archangel from the doorway, Dean says, “Hey Luce,” when the angel looks up, Dean goes on, “Let's just keep what we talked about between us?”

“Dean,” the angel starts, clearly about to admonish, but Dean cuts him off. 

“Please?” he asks simply. 

With a sigh, Lucifer acquiesces, “Alright, but the next time you face Amara, you won't be alone.”

“Thanks Luce,” Dean says before turning through the door. 

**

The hunter finds Olle in the armory, cleaning weapons. 

“Hey man,” Dean says stopping at the round table in the middle of the main room, “do you know where the gold blades are?”

Olle looks up, continuing to put his Taurus back together, “Banshee?” When Dean nods, Olle points at the third corridor to Dean's left, “Fifth door on the right, middle rack, sixth drawer down.”

“Thanks man,” Dean says disappearing down the hallway. 

When Dean gets back, Olle is nowhere to be seen. Coming off the elevator, though, the immortal is leaning on the War Room table holding a backpack, “Mind if I tag along?”

He huffs a laugh, “Worried about Sammy?”

Olle falls in step with the oldest Winchester, “Curious, haven't seen a Banshee in a couple hundred years. Thought their fairy counterparts killed them all.”

Dean is not buying that, but he just nods, “Sure, could always use an extra hand.” Getting off the elevator, Dean's phone rings. 

Before the hunter can get out a real greeting, Sam blurts out, “Dean, look up Edward Durban II!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so stuck right now I've moved on to a much, much further away part of the story. I know I'm stuck right in the middle of an episode and that should make it easier, but I just can't find the words. 
> 
> I'm working like crazy at this new job, too. That's great, don't get me wrong, but when you're exhausted and physically worn out it's difficult to find the time or the inclination to write. I'm bruised and burnt and my hands have been, are, so swollen from over use that it hurts to type. 
> 
> I promise, not just all of you, but myself that as soon as inspiration strikes I'll get back at it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you all enjoy!


	14. Chapter 14

“Edward Druban II,” Dean repeats, looking at Olle curiously as they make their way into the War Room. 

The immortal gets a thoughtful look on his face and heads down the corridor, Dean following behind. “There's a file room down here,” Olle trails off pushing open a door across the hall from the newly cleaned out conference room. “Here we go,” he exclaims, handing Dean a book before turning back to a file cabinet. 

Dean takes the book and opens it, realizing it is a ledger. “Okay Sam, hang on,” he tells his brother. Finding the man's name, he shakes his head, “She ain't lying Sam.” 

When Dean gets off the phone, telling his brother he and Olle will be back soon, the immortal hands him a folder, “Last record was of his marriage to an Irish woman in 1957. He was probably killed by Abadon when his daughter was very young.”

“What?” Dean wonders, walking with Olle through the Bunker so they can head out. 

Olle chuckles, “Abadon killed her way through the whole roster before realizing Henry left the door open. I think she was looking for a duplicate key or any information about where Henry went. If she weren't so impatient, she could have just waited around until he popped up again.” Squeezing himself into the front seat of the Impala Olle says, “I felt the push when Henry came through and, again, when Abadon popped up. You never wondered why there was so much lag time?”

Dean shrugs, starting the engine and pulling out of the garage, “We never gave it much thought. That was a crazy couple of days and, after, everything started to spiral with the trials and Cas running off and then Metatron.”

Olle nods, flipping through Edward's file, “Eileen will probably appreciate seeing these. Looks like he was a legacy so there should be a longer record somewhere of his entire family history.” 

“So there's a file for Henry, too, then, right?” Dean wonders, glancing over at Olle for a moment before turning back to the road. 

Olle nods, “The Winchesters, like the Campbells, were hunters; until the 16th century. They became Men of Letters and, when they came to the New World, hunters again before slipping into everyday life. Henry's great-grandfather will be the first record of a Winchester they have. I'm certain I have more detailed information at home, from trying to find them.”

“And kill them,” Dean adds sarcastically.

Olle nods, unwilling to deny the truth. “Small scale genocide to prevent the Apocalypse. You were willing, once, to negate your own existence. Everyone dying bloody is a lot different than a few people never being born.”

Dean concedes the point with a shrugs as they turn the corner and Oak Park comes into view. 

**

Knocking on the door, Olle smiles at the older blond who answers. He notices the leering look she gives him and smiles, this must be the woman Dean was talking about. Looking over her head, he sees Sam, “Hey Babe,” Olle says as he throws his backpack at the hunter. “Clothes.”

Sam smiles, shaking his head amused as he looks down at the bag, “I'll be right back.”

Olle turns to Mildred, holding out his hand in greeting, “Hello.” 

Taking his hand, Mildred smiles, “Hello. Who are you? Another brother?”

Olle laughs, putting down the information he brought for Eileen. “I'm Olle. I'm a friend of the brothers.”

“A friend, huh?” she says staring at the bathroom door, where Sam just disappeared to change. Olle chuckles, and shrugs. “Go introduce yourself to Eileen, I'm going to make some coffee.”

He turns to the young woman who must be Eileen and smiles, “Hello,” he waves. Speaking slowly, he signs while he talks, “I learned English as a child and, when I learned to sign, is was using American Sign Language. Is that okay?”

Eileen nods, signing without speaking, “That's fine. Who are you?” she asks, making a face to indicate her curiosity. 

“My name is Olle. I'm a hunter friend of the boys. I'm also a Man of Letters. I found some information about your grandfather.” He moves over to the table and hands her the files he brought with him. 

“Thank you,” Eileen signs, opening the folders. 

Olle nods and moves away from her, back to the table, where Mildred has two cups of coffee fresh from the Keurig. “Where's Dean?” Sam says coming out of the bathroom as Olle turns up his cup. 

“Wanted to find a better place to leave Baby,” Olle says. Sam comes over behind him, resting his hands on Olle's shoulders and the man leans back into him, tilting his head to look up, “You okay Sammy?” he wonders quietly. 

Sam smiles and reaches forward, taking Olle's cup; it is plane black coffee and the immortal was just being polite, but Sam will drink it. “Yeah,” he tells his boyfriend easily. He is excited to have found Eileen and calmer now that Olle is here. It is strange, he thinks, coming around to sit across from Olle while Mildred goes over to sit with Eileen, but having Olle around stops him from assuming the whole of Creation is seconds away from being consumed by Amara. 

Olle nods, hoping Sam is telling the truth, but not certain he knows him well enough to be sure. “Is there a common room or something we can set up in tonight?” he asks. “Trying to fight one of these things is difficult enough, we all need room to move.”

“Yeah,” Sam says sitting his cup down and asking, “Mildred, can you and Eileen come sit with us?”

When the ladies join them, Olle asks Eileen, “Would you prefer to read lips or let me translate?”

“It would probably go faster,” she says, “if you can sign.”

Olle smiles and nods before pushing out from the table some and moving his chair directly into Eileen's line of sight. Sam waits for his boyfriend to settle down, then starts to speak, “The common room downstairs has the most open space. I figure, Eileen, we can use your ruse as a member of the staff and set up there. Park your cart outside and put a sign on the door.” 

Eileen nods, “That's a good idea. I can show you how to make the binding glyph and we can place them in several spots around the room.” 

“Why don't you and Sam do that,” Olle says while signing. “Mildred and I will stay here until you're ready.”

Sam agrees and he and Eileen head out the door to get everything ready. Olle gets a text as they are leaving, Dean had to park Baby a few blocks over, in a parking building; he has been very careful with her since everything that happened in Oregon back in June.


	15. Chapter 15

“How long have you and Sam been together?” Mildred asks Olle once they are alone together. 

Olle chuckles, “Just a couple of months.”

Mildred nods, “You really love him don't you?”

Olle turns serious, “I don't think I'm ready to say that just yet.”

“Doesn't mean it's not true, though, does it?” she says seriously, all smiles. 

Olle merely shrugs. Wanting to change the subject, he asks her, “Dean told me you said you saw a ghost a few years back. Wanna tell me about it?”

Mildred chuckles, but she allows the change of subject. By the time Dean texts Olle to let him know he should be there in just a few minutes, Olle has learned all about Mildred's first brush with the supernatural. 

**

Olle follows Mildred into the common room downstairs and watches as she pulls Dean over to enjoy the sunset. He knows she has had her eye on him, probably since the first time she saw him, and he thinks it wouldn't be a bad idea. Anything, he thinks, to distract him from Amara and Mildred seems to be the distracting type. 

“Hey,” Sam turns to look up at Olle, standing behind his chair, “do you need a blade?”

Brought out of his wandering thoughts about Dean, Olle turns to Sam, “No.” Pulling a gold dagger from his shoulder holster, Olle starts to look around, feeling a shift in the energy of the room, she is here. Before he gets the words out, he sees Dean has gotten up, but stopped mid-step. 

“Did you hear that?” Dean asks everyone, before he starts to look around the room. 

Too late, Olle realizes their mistake in bringing the hunter here. Dean is down on the floor already, holding his head, as he calls out for his brother. Sam is out of his chair, headed for Dean, when the Banshee appears. Her long red dress and billowing hair are the first thing to form in the mist before Olle sees the shining golden energy behind her eyes and filling her mouth. “You're old aren't you?” Olle says moving toward the Banshee, blade in hand. 

The creatures disappears into mist for a moment, only to reappear behind him and send Eileen sailing across the room. Olle pivots, but she is gone again; unholy shrieking still tormenting Dean. Luckily, Mildred makes it to one of Eileen's binding glyphs before any of them. 

Pulled across the room, the Banshee is trapped, allowing Eileen to end her with her blade. Only then does Dean stagger to his feet, eyes and ears bleeding. 

Olle puts his blade away, still curious who the creature was when she was alive, and goes to check on Mildred while Sam moves directly to Dean. Doing a cursory examination to determine Mildred has suffered no ill effects, Olle is satisfied she will be fine. “You get a good night's rest and you should be fine,” he tells her. “I'll check on you in the morning.”

“Thank you,” she says gratefully. “Is he going to be okay?” she asks, concerned about Dean. 

“I'm about to go find out,” Olle says standing. Sam has directed his brother to the chair he just vacated and Olle goes over to sit on the table in front of him. 

“Is he okay?” Sam asks his boyfriend while looking nervously at his brother. 

Olle reaches out and cups Dean's face, his pupils are pinpricks and the whites of his eyes are full of blood. Turning his head, Olle covers one ear and snaps near the other, “Hear anything?” he asks. When Dean concentrates too long before nodding, Olle backs off and prays quietly, “Baz, man, use the door. I need you.”

Immediately, the door opens and Balthazar comes in, wearing classic black, as always,“You rang? I was in the middle of something.”

“What?” Olle wants to know. 

The angel shrugs, “Watching TV.”

“Where's Beth?” the immortal wonders. 

The angel shrugs, coming to stop by Dean, “Otherwise occupied. I don't have a clue what she's doing right now; probably sleeping.”

Olle shakes his head, more worried now than anything about what the two of them are doing. “Can you fix that?” he points a Dean. 

The angel stares for a moment before saying, “There.” Turning, he sees Eileen, still on the floor, and says, “She's been deaf too long for me to fix, but the broken ribs and cracked vertebra, all taken care of love,” he tells her, enunciating each word so she can read his lips. When that is done, he simply walk back out the door with an easy, “See you gents later.”

“Let's get this place cleaned up,” Olle says standing to go pull Eileen to her feet. 

**

Eileen agrees to stay with Mildred tonight, as a precaution and a reassurance, while the men do what they can to put the common room back in order. 

After a couple of hours scrubbing the bloodstained wall, Dean yawns and looks over at Olle and Sam trying to put the bookcase Eileen was thrown into back together. “This is pointless,” he grouses. “Can't we get one of the guys to just,” and he snaps. 

Olle stops what he is doing to look over at Dean, “It's your idea, you pick one of them and ask.”

Dean puts down his rag, closes his eyes, and looks up at the ceiling, “Gabriel,” he prays seriously, “sorry to bother you with night maintenance, but blood doesn't really come off walls man. Can you fix this mess? Please.”

“So, I gotta stop what I'm doing,” the angel asks, appearing in the middle of the room, “because you don't want to go to Home Depot?”

“Really?” Dean snarks right back, “We're in Kansas, where's the closest Home Depot?” Dean moves across the room to glare down at the angel, “It's takin' you more time to bitch about it than it would to fix it.”

Gabriel laughs while he snaps, putting everything right, and says nothing before he is gone again. 

“Thank you,” Dean barks irately into the ether, looking around the room. 

“I can't believe you thanked him,” Sam chuckles, coming over to stand with his brother; Olle following behind. 

Dean looks at Sam, “Yeah, well, I know mythology. Loki likes to be thanked.”

“You should buy him a Snicker's,” Olle says. “Or a dark chocolate Milky Way, if you can find one. He'll have to consider it tribute and won't be able to hold this over your head as a favor. Just be sure to tell him it's for doing this when you give it to him.”

“Is an archangel really bound by pagan law like that?” Sam asks. 

“He is,” Olle says, wrapping his arm around Sam's waist and sharing his space, “because he chose to become Loki and he chose to live according to their rules. If he tries to get around it with Grace, his tricks always backfire and some minor miracle happens. If he tries to use pagan magick, it just doesn't work.” The immortal chuckles, “I really think it's just his Dad screwing with him.”

“Noted,” Dean says. “We can stop on the way back to the Bunker, Baby needs gas anyway.” With that, Dean heads for the door, expecting the other two to follow. 

“When we come back tomorrow,” Olle says as they all head for the front of the building, “we're bringing the truck. I hate trying to squeeze into the Impala.”

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” Dean says seriously. 

“You've used that line already,” Sam laughs, remembering the Leviathan, as they all go outside. 

“Why are we even coming back tomorrow?” Dean wonders. 

“I told Mildred we'd come have brunch with her and Eileen,” Olle answers. “You can bring Baby, but I'm not riding with you. I love her, she's beautiful, but I just don't fit.”

Dean chuckles as they follow him down the block, toward the parking garage where he parked Baby earlier.


	16. Chapter 16

Beth has spent the past two days trapped in Renaissance Fair Hell. She has not seen Serena since the night she arrived and there is at least one notably powerful witch with her at all times; she is only alone when she is locked in her room at night. The only good thing about this, she thinks comically, is she now has three new outfits if she ever wants to drag everyone to a real Ren. Fair. Today, her dress is red and her leggings, cloak, boots, and leather sheath are all black; it is a mark of her status as Coven Elder. She thinks Olle would look delicious, like Vin Diesel in The Last Witch Hunter, in the outfits the men are wearing. He comes across as much more imposing and dangerous than she does, though, and she knows he would never have been given this opportunity. 

The moon is full today at 8:21 p.m., and it looks like a witch's convention has descended upon the estate; there are thousands of witches gathering and Beth has a sinking suspicion whatever they intend to do this evening is monumental, powerful, and dangerous. The entire estate is full of tents and stalls where witches and covens have come to trade wares while they wait. She has been watching them prepare the large empty field behind the house, clearing away the snow and setting out stones to mark off the circle and building a stone alter. It all really does remind her of a mid-evil village during a harvest festival. She has been allowed to wander the stalls, speaking to people and trading money, bits of knowledge, or a trinket here or there for something she has seen that is particularly valuable or dangerous. 

She is also making note of whom, among the many thousands, she will need to kill afterward; wondering if she, Olle, and the brothers can do it all without angelic help because at least two whole covens need to be obliterated and she does not want to expose the angels if at all possible. The Tibetan coven with cages of children, for use in spells or simply as a meal, tests her resolve to remain impassive, but she manages with a silent promise to herself that these people die first, and die slowly. She wanders into their tent for a second time, when she sees one of the men has something that truly piques her interest. 

Listening to the two men for a moment, determining what language she needs to speak, she wrinkles her nose at the stench of unwashed bodies and feces emanating from the dozen cages around her, housing at least twice that many children; none older than twelve. Her escort stops by a cage housing three boys barely old enough to crawl, and Beth decides to buy them before Illiria can make a meal out of them. After she has negotiated for those boys, and all the children under six, losing the ruby earrings Gabriel gave her for Christmas, she tilts her head at the shop keeper's belt, “What would I need to give you for that?”

The witch looks down at his Blood Blade, a priceless artifact and one of the few weapons in existence she does not have at least one of. He laughs, leering at her, “Well Elder, you've given me two of Kali's Rubies; what else do you have that is of any value?”

The man is undeniably attractive, but she can sense the glamour he uses and his aura makes her skin crawl. She cannot tell exactly what he is, though she knows he is not a child of Eve and she would whore herself out to a hellhound for one of those blades, so she leans into him and runs her hand down his arm, stopping at his wrist, where he still grasps the hilt of the blade. Turning her eyes up, she smiles, “What do you want Warlock?”

He grabs the back of her head and shoves their mouths together, thrusting his tongue in her mouth and she nearly gags at the taste of stale blood and rotten meat; he is a fucking Rugaru. She knows, now, he intends on taking her tongue with him when he pulls away so she shoves him hard and he staggers back before he can make a snack out of her. Panting, she smiles at him, “You should ask if I'm willing to make that kind of payment first.”

He grins, letting the glamour fall away, and she sees the glowing red eyes and mottled white flesh, “Would you have given yourself to me?” 

She laughs, “I'll fuck you, no problem, but I'm not letting you rip out my tongue.”

He picks up her left hand then, pushing her sleeve up to the elbow, and, smoothing his hand down her arm, plays with her fingers while saying, “Ride me then, your warm flesh against my cold skin, and I only take your arm to the elbow. Do that,” he smiles, “and I'll give you my blade.”

“You want my arm while I fuck you, don't you?” Beth asks. When the Rugaru nods, she does as well, “After the ritual.”

He nods, “Of course Elder. After the ritual.” He lets go of her hand and turns to start barking orders about the packaging and delivery of the children she just purchased. 

She goes back out of the tent determined to kill him, all of them, after the ritual; even if it means bringing down an archangel smiting on their asses, because she will need a rape shower with Holy Fire if she lets that thing inside her. 

Illiria follows along behind her, mumbling to herself what a shame it is the little ones are no longer for sale, while Beth strides, confidently, toward the crimson Elder's tent directly behind the ritual space. It is time for Serena to start keeping up her end of their bargain. 

Inside the tent are the dozen elders Beth came to see and two others, a young Hispanic girl, about fourteen, and a heavily pregnant Japanese woman. She stops, letting the tent flap block Illiria's view; she is not allowed inside. Looking around, she finally asks, “Where's the Crone?” already knowing the answer. 

“She stands before us Ancestor,” a black eyed vampire witch, Ethel, answers. Beth shakes her head, wondering why she did not kill that bitch centuries ago. “You are, after all, the eldest member of the Grand Coven. It is only fitting you are the final sacrifice as we rip open the Cage, release Lucifer, and trap the Darkness.”

Beth laughs, the first truly amused laugh she has had since she got here, and moves over to the table to pour herself a drink. “I'm all for trapping Amara,” she says turning up her glass and noting the Scotch is delicious and not even drugged or enchanted. “Do you really think, though, Lucifer will do your bidding? Just because you release him?”

Omar, who is at least a thousand years older than Ethel, but looks even more like a GQ model than Dean, comes over to stand beside her, “Lilith always did our bidding as long as she was well fed.” He stares pointedly at the Japanese woman's heavy belly and Beth grinds her teeth. 

“It will be a honor to die by the Dark Lord's hand,” she says finally, adding an air of Harry Potter to this already ridiculous situation. She notes the Maiden and the Mother are not enchanted or chained so they must, also, be volunteers. She looks among these bottom feeding, evil, beings and wonders if they could have found a way Gabriel has overlooked to stop Amara. 

“I would like to see this ritual,” she says, mind working overtime to get her the twelve steps ahead Gabriel always told her she needs to be in battle; she was never very good at that. Omar, Ethel, and the others nod before directing her to another long table on the opposite side of the tent; strewn with books, tablets, and parchment.


	17. Chapter 17

Olle's alarm goes off and he rolls away from Sam to reach for his phone. Turning it off, he lays the device back on the nightstand and stretches before rolling back into Sam's chest. Pulling the other man even closer to him, Olle buries his face in the hunter's neck to take in his scent, “You always smell so fucking good, Sammy. I could drown in you and never be anxious about it.”

“I'm pretty sure that's shampoo,” Sam chuckles, the early morning timber of his voice adding to Olle's delight. 

The immortal shakes his head, still nestled in Sam's neck, “It's you. Sweet like apples and earthy like fresh parchment. Just like how you taste.” Olle licks his neck, then, before moving to stare down at the hunter, arms bracketing Sam's head. “You just overwhelm all five senses with how absolutely wonderful you are,” Olle says simply, before leaning down to taste the man's mouth. 

When Olle pulls slowly away, Sam smiles, dimples on full display, “I wish I could see you the way God must have in the beginning,” he says shifting around to cradle Olle's head in his hands. “The most perfectly imperfect thing that ever wasn't Him or Amara; he must have looked at you just like you're looking at me now; like I'm the only thing that matters, like I'm Creation.” Sam rolls them, straddling Olle's thighs with his hair falling around his face as he looks down at the immortal, “I don't think I'll ever get tired of you looking at me like that.” 

Sam devours Olle's mouth, pressing their bodies as close together as they can possibly get, and Olle clings to him, giving as good as he gets. When both men have to breathe, Sam does not move away, his hair draped around Olle's face. Quietly, the immortal says, “I'm glad you see how I see you, Sam. I'm glad you know, to me, you are the only thing that matters; and I'll do whatever it takes to get to keep looking at you like that for as long as you'll let me.”

He wants to tell him he loves him, is not sure what stops him, but, too late, the moment is gone and Sam is rolling off the bed, “Let's go get in the shower. We're going to have to coax Dean into going back to Oak Park with us later.”

The immortal sighs, following his hunter and wondering how many more missed opportunities there will be. 

**

Dean grumbles quietly the whole way to Oak Park, even though he agreed to let Olle drive. Parking the truck in the same parking building Dean used last night, Olle kills the engine and asks, exasperated, “Why did you let me drive if you were going to be so fucking irritating the whole trip?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Dean says seriously as they file out of the truck. Coming around the back, he looks at his brother, “You're boyfriend's an asshole, dude.”

Sam shakes his head, he had to listen to Dean's complaints, and his backseat driving, the whole way as well, “Yeah, well, so's my brother. You should have just brought the Impala,” Sam tells him, standing between the two men, holding Olle's hand. They head for the street and continue to grouse back and forth. 

By the time they get to Mildred's door, Sam is pretty sure they have gotten most of Dean's bad attitude out already. When the older woman opens the door, she lights up at the sight of Dean and, taking his hand, pulls him into the apartment while Sam and Olle follow. 

Olle pries Mildred away from Dean after a few minutes, just to give her a thorough once over to be sure she is still doing as well as she was last night. Once the doctor is convinced she is none the worse for wear, he lets her go back to setting the table. Everyone has offered to help, but the woman insists on doing it herself, as thanks for saving her life. 

Moving to the couch, Olle waves at Eileen to get her attention. “Hi.” She smiles, waving in return, and Olle starts to sign, “Sam said you were thinking about becoming a lawyer?” When she nods her head in an uncertain manner, Olle chuckles. “Well, if you do take the LSAT and want to apply, I have a few connections at Yale and Stanford; depending on where you'd like to go. If you want to go back to the UK or Ireland, I have a few friends there as well. I'll help you any way I can.”

Eileen nods, smiling before she speaks, “Thank you. I'm not sure what I'd like to do. This life, being a hunter, is all I've ever really known. I don't know how well I'd fit in the real world.”

Sam joins them then, Dean is helping Mildred cut fruit while she scrambles eggs. “Would you give any thought to joining the Men of Letters? You are a legacy,” the hunter tells her while Olle signs what he says. 

The dark haired woman shrugs, “I don't know if secret societies are really my thing.” She pauses, thinking, “I may go back to Ireland for a while. Just, try to process everything and think about what I'd like to do.”

Sam nods in understanding as Mildred calls them all over to the table. 

More important than the quality of the food, though that is very good, the company is easy and companionable. Mildred hears a rather toned down version of how Olle and the brothers became hunters and regales them with tales of her time as a blonde Patsy Cline. With Olle's help interpreting, Eileen tells them about her time growing up in Ireland and coming to the United States when she was a teenager. Everyone laughs and eats and enjoys the time they spend together. 

As the meal is ending, though, and Olle and Sam have insisted on cleaning up, there is a knock at the door. When Mildred opens it, Olle hears Lucifer's voice, “Hello. Is Olle here?”

Pulling his hands out of the dishwater, he turns to see Mildred let the eldest archangel inside. Immediately on guard, he asks, “What's happened?”

The angel shakes his sandy head and says, “We have to go. It's Beth.”

Olle nods once and turns to Sam, pulling him in with one hand, he kisses him fast and hard, “I'll let you know as soon as I can what's going on.” He smiles at the worried look on the hunter's face, “Don't worry Sammy, what can anyone do to us that hasn't already been done?”

With that, the immortal and the angel vanish while the brothers are left to explain to Mildred and Eileen what just happened.


	18. Chapter 18

There is no way this ritual is strong enough to deal any damage to Amara, Beth realizes as she reads, but, with Lucifer free of the Cage, it is strong enough to summon him unwillingly. She decides there is nothing left for her to do but pray and let him know what he is about to be forced into. She is suddenly thankful this is how everything turned out; if he had just vanished without anyone knowing what was going on, it could have turned out even worse than it probably will now. This is either going to prove he is ready to fight or utterly destroy him, she realizes, because he will have no choice but to kill his way out of here once he arrives. 

With hours yet until the ritual is set to begin, Beth leaves the table and joins everyone else across the tent for what is supposed to be her last meal. She sits and starts to help herself to the stereotypically midevil feast before looking over at the younger girl across from her who is nervously picking at her food. “Are you alright child?” she asks around a bit of rare beef and large drink of good red wine. 

The girl nods, “It is a great honor, what I'm doing, and I'm glad I was chosen, of all those who volunteered, but,” she trails off uneasily. 

“You're worried he'll find you lacking in some way?” Omar asks kindly and the girl nods. 

Beth laughs, “Lucifer is discerning in his taste, it's true, but, are you a virgin?” When the girl nods shyly, Beth goes on, “And this is your first ritual?” Again, she nods and Beth smiles at her, “You have nothing to be afraid of then. He'll be swift and sure in his judgment and treatment of you.” Which means she is going to make him leave her alive at the end of it all and hope what he does to everyone else will knock some sense into her. She turns, then, to the Mother and asks, “When were you chosen?”

The woman takes a long drink of wine before she answers, “Six of us were chosen to participate during the Beltane ritual and I was the only one to conceive.” 

“And the sire?” she asks using a formal word because sperm donor would come out angry and father is so far from the truth it is laughable. When the woman looks, proudly, at Omar, Beth nods her head wondering what she is going to do with a newborn who is probably a few weeks early, because this woman, and Omar, are getting killed ruthlessly before the day is out. 

When everyone returns to their meal, Beth realizes she needs to give the Devil a little bit of time to prepare so she starts to pray silently. “Lucifer, please have your halo on here man. Get Gabe and Olle and go to my apartment in Paris for Baz. Shit's about to go down and it's gonna be fucking horrible. I'll give you a minute to get everyone together and then we'll get down to business.” While she waits, she fills her wine glass again and helps herself to more beef. 

**

Lucifer and Olle, appear in Gabriel's research room and the Devil says, “Gabe, Beth needs us.” 

Without giving his brother a chance to respond, they are all standing in the hallway outside Olle's apartment in Paris and the immortal opens the door, striding in, calling out, “Beth, Baz, what's going on?”

Balthazar jerks up from his sprawl on the couch in front of the TV to ask, “What's up?” 

Before anyone can answer, though, the angels hear her voice in their heads and Lucifer takes Olle's wrist so the immortal can hear as well. “Okay guys, I hope everyone can hear me, because shit's about to get real.” She precedes to explain to them the ritual the Grand Coven is about to preform and, though she does not tell them what she and Balthazar were doing or how she ended up alone with them in Scotland, they have all the particulars. “Now,” she says, finished explaining what they are trying to do, “I have a plan. The whole estate is well warded against angels, left over from the Men of Letters, but, because they are summoning you Luce, you'll bypass the warding. That means you're the only angel who can get in so you can't come with the whole cavalry. You can either come alone, Luce, if you feel ready to do what has to be done, or you can bring Olle, but,”

“You'll have to use me as a vessel,” Olle finishes for her when there is a pause in her prayer. 

When Beth has continued, saying what Olle already did, she goes on, “I figure you'll have until about seven-thirty Edinborough time to figure out what you're going to do, but, Luce,” her tone turns malicious, “I'm not leaving here until every single one of them is dead. I was going to try to get them on our side, but, man, they gotta go. It won't wipe out the whole Coven, but it will cripple them and that's got to be enough. Oh,” she says almost like an afterthought, “you'll need Olle's blood, I sealed all my clothes and weapons inside a leather bag in my room inside the house and I'll need them. I gotta go, it's time for them to drag me outside and chain me up.”

“Is she being literal?” Lucifer asks, letting go of Olle's wrist and turning to look at the immortal. 

Olle shakes his head, “They would use volunteers, but they would, probably, chain them; in case anyone changed their mind or got scared and tried to run from you. Your power, even when you were corrupted by the Mark, is Heavenly and pure; it is both enticing and terrifying to witches.”

“What are you going to do here Luce?” Gabriel asks. “Do you want Olle to go with you?” He knows his brother will have no problem, physically, dealing with the witches, but his emotions are another story. Olle and Beth can cut through them almost as easily as he can, so taking the immortal and letting the two of them lose on the Coven would be, in Gabriel's mind, a better idea. 

Lucifer is thoughtful as he paces in front of the TV, the others waiting for a response. Olle speaks when it seems like the angel cannot make up his own mind. “They are expecting you as you were during the Apocalypse, Luce. They want the insane, feral angel who was amused, aroused, and enticed by violence, cruelty, and mayhem. If you don't think you can fake that long enough for Beth and I to blast through the angel warding, you need to let me go with you.” He thinks of something else as well, “They may not have told Beth everything, anyway. If they try to trap you with Holy Fire, you need me with you; she and I can pass through the fire while containing an angel.”

“I'm going alone,” he says confidently then. He has stopped pacing and is looking between them, “I'm trusting Beth to get me out of there in one piece and I don't want to risk any of you. If something happens, we have to worry about Amara before we worry about any of us and,” he turns to Olle, “if you go, they'll follow.” He looks between his brothers, “They can't really hurt her and I'll kill her before I let them take her so she will come back to you. If they take me, if any of them have the means to really hurt or kill me, it means they can do the same to you and that cannot happen.” 

Everyone looks around ominously and Lucifer starts to get a tingling sensation throughout his body. He knows his brothers, Olle, want to fight, but he also knows this is a test he needs to, has to, pass and allowing them to take it for him serves no purpose. “It's starting,” he says simply and they all settle down to wait.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere around here I completely lost my shit and have no idea what's happening. It gets worse around chapter 23; be prepared. I just got so far gone I don't know how to fix it so I'm running with it.

Beth refuses to allow them to chain her and stands confidently beside the other, bound, women at the base of the alter. She was stripped bare before she was taken outside and her hair was taken down to billow around her in the freezing winter air. After nearly an hour, she wishes for Balthazar's warming touch from the other night, but refuses to shiver or curl in on herself like the two women beside her, who are huddled on the ground. She simply waits while Ethel and Omar preform the first part of the ritual, to summon Lucifer. Once he arrives, he is supposed to complete the second half which, they believe, by sacrificing the three women, will allow him to destroy Amara.

Beth has no idea what she was expecting, but Lucifer appearing before her alone is not it. She holds her breath as he looks at her and smiles, one of his genuine, happy smiles, and she returns it. She realizes then, everyone is holding their breath because this, he, is power like none of them have seen before, but that, besides pain, is the first thing she remembers ever feeling and she laughs as he comes to her and kisses her, biting into her lip hard enough to draw blood while she hears his voice in her head, “I was summoned before I could get Olle's blood, and this,” she hears him chuckle, “is dramatic and effective.” She laughs aloud, into the kiss, as he draws her blood into his mouth and swallows before stepping back. 

Beth is warm again, does not even feel the cold, and she strains to see him the way everyone around her must; it takes her breath away he is so beautiful; a glowing beacon of Grace in the light of braziers and bonfires. He is pacing now, in front of the three sacrifices, and Beth notices she is covered in blood; too much blood since he healed her lip, but it must look like he has done something to her, like she is bleeding out through her mouth. She hears his voice, again, “Slaughter house in the next village, it's sheep. Sorry; you should probably crumple to your knees,” when she does just that, right at his feet, he smiles and she cannot help but return it. “What, exactly, do you want me to do with them?” he asks silently about the other two women. 

“You're not going to like it,” she thinks at him as he goes to the Japanese woman and, merely grasping her chin, pulls her to a standing position. When Beth sees the awe and willingness to go, die, do whatever he tells her to in the woman's eyes she does not care what doing this will do to the archangel because she wants her to suffer. “Send the baby to Olle and make sure she is in pain; make sure she is going to live days if I decide to let her,” Beth projects into the angel's mind, her tone ominously even. 

Lucifer reaches out and cups her swollen belly with his right hand before he speaks his first words; they are quiet, said only to her, but everyone hears them, “My Father cast Creation into the void and abandoned us all to fend for ourselves, but at least he never set out to see us consumed.” His words are like ice and the woman screams as soon as he stops speaking. He lets go of her then and turns away as if he has no more use for her, but Beth knows it is because he cannot bare to look at what he has just done. Falling to her knees, she clutches her abdomen and rocks, shaking, moaning, and crying, while she bleeds as if she just gave birth. 

Moving to stare down at the youngest of the sacrifices, who has crab-walked her way as far away from them all as her chain allows, he projects at Beth, “I can't hurt her, she is young, ignorant, and easily lead, but she isn't evil. Oni deserves whatever you do to her, and she deserved the pain I gave her, but Gabriela doesn't.”

All Beth can say to that is, “Make the rest of them think she is dead and let's get on with this. I bought children from a Rugaru and I'm supposed to fuck him while he eats me, when this is over; he needs to die slower than Mommy Dearest over here.”

He chuckles out loud and thinks, “No wonder my brothers love you, you're all batshit crazy.” Reaching out, he cups the child's face and pulls her to her feet before kissing her on the forehead. When he releases her and steps away, she drops, unconscious, eyes wide open, and, for all appearances, stone dead, to the ground. Clapping his hands together and turning to Serena and the Elders; giving them his best grin, reminiscent of Gabriel's favorite Loki face, he wonders, “That was great fun and all, but where is all this power you promised me so I can shove my aunt back in her hole?”

Beth is impressed, he sounds as evil and crazy as he ever did when he bore the Mark.

The Elders all stare back and forth between themselves; none of them moving from their position inside the circle. When no one comes up with an answer, Serena steps forward, pointing angrily at Beth, “Kill the Ancestor, consume their power, and use it to destroy the Darkness!”

Lucifer calls over his shoulder to Beth, who still sits on the ground covered in sheep's blood; watching him, “Does this one need to be slow and painful or can I just,” and, when he snaps, Serena vaporizes into a fine, bloody mist that is more disturbing than even the 'water balloon of chunky soup' Cas has been reduced to on more than one occasion. 

Because of the direction of the wind, the Elders are all covered in the bloody mist that was Serena and Beth laughs before answering, “Nope, Oni and the Rugaru are going to be singled out, but the rest, you can just,” and when Beth snaps Lucifer uses that as the que to demolish everyone still within the warding; except the Tibetan Rugaru and the twelve Elders. She looks up at him, “The kids are all okay, right? More than just the ones I bought, I mean.”

Lucifer nods and, pulling her to her feet, she is clean, clothed, and fully armed before he drags the Rugaru in front of her and says, “Do you want him or do you want me to tell my brother what he was about to do to you?”

The second Beth has clothes on, she pushes through the weakened angel warding and, before she can answer, Gabriel and Balthazar appear behind them and both ask, “What was that thing going to do to you?” as they step forward to bracket their brother. 

Before Beth can stop him, Lucifer says, “Her exact words were, “I'm supposed to fuck him while he eats me when this is over.” So, I think the two of you should have him,” he finishes with a smile, throwing the creature at their feet. “How's the baby?” he asks concerned. 

“Olle has her at the hospital,” Gabriel says, not taking his blazing gold eyes off the Rugaru. 

“It was a small matter,” Balthazar continues, eyes glowing with malice and Grace, “to make the doctors think her mother died in a car accident. She'll be fine.” 

Gabriel reaches down, then, and pulls the creature's belt off, throwing Beth the Tibetan Blood Blade still in its sheath and, picking him up by the shoulder, says, “The sex and the meal were for the blade, what did you give him for the children?”

“My rubies,” she answers, knowing he must be reading the creatures mind and, therefore, already knew. 

He only nods, “He got cheated, but I'll get them back for you.” She does not have time to respond before he, Balthazar, and the warlock are gone. She knows, for the first time in over half a century, the interrogation room in the Men of Letters Bunker is going to be well used.


	20. Chapter 20

Lucifer looks down at Beth and wonders, “Are we killing them?” as he tilts his head at the Elders. 

Beth wonders if he is keeping them from leaving or if they are all so shocked and confused that none of them have tried to move. “Are they the only ones left alive?” she wonders looking around. The festival grounds covered two acres, not including the ritual space, and it is saturated with so much gore the bonfires were doused; only Serena was vaporized, everyone else got chunky souped. 

The archangel shrugs, “Almost twenty-eight-hundred people, Crowley is going to notice the influx. They are all that's left,” he gestures to the Elders. “The animals and the innocents, thirty-seven children and a forty-two slaves, are all safe, well, and warm inside the house. Everything is going to need to be salted and burned, just to be safe and, just in case, I need to comb through the salves minds; some of them could be just as bad, or worse, than Hansel.” 

Beth smiles, “Olle really did show you everything we know about them, didn't he.” When the devil nods, she goes on, “Ethel and Omar need all their skin peeled off, slowly, and she needs to be fed dead blood. But, the others, I'm not sure,” she says as she looks them over slowly. “What do you think we should do with them? They did drag you here against your will. I agreed to meet with them, agreed to be the Crone, it can't all be up to me. You're the injured party. And, I'm sorry,” her voice softens as she reaches out and takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. “About Oni, and all of this,” she looks around at the literal blood bath.

He gives her hand a squeeze and smiles down at her, “The worst part is, I think, that it was easier than I wanted it to be, but, for right now, I'm doing okay.” 

“If, at any point, you decide you're not, just let me know and you can go,” she says softly and he nods. 

He squeezes her hand again before letting it go. “As for them,” he shrugs, looking them over thoughtfully, “none of them should be allowed to live, but I'll defer to your judgment.” Shaking his head and wondering, he looks down at her, “What were you doing here, anyway? What have you and Baz been up to?”

She will admit it to him, because he already knows about Crowley; and she is pretty sure she is going to need his help before it is all over. “I told Baz about Lee, and we are searching for his Grace. I need information about Rowena and I'm trying to find out what Nadia knew without going to Crowley and bartering for her release.”

“Can you talk to a guinea pig?” he laughs. 

She shakes her head and quips, “If that ginger whore can turn her into a gerbil, I can damn well turn her back.”

Lucifer laughs, Beth smiles, and, in the blink of an eye, they are all standing inside the Elder's tent. It is nearly nine and frigid, so she uses what little magick it takes to light the braziers and ignite the fires in the two fire-pits on each end of the tent. 

As Lucifer goes over to pour him and Beth both a large glass of Scotch, he asks the witches, “What can any of you tell us about Nadia and her relationship with Rowena McLeod?” When no one has spoken by the time he hands Beth her drink, he leans on the table and crosses his ankles before saying, “Come on now, don't everyone all speak at once.” 

“What are you going to do with us?” Ethel asks finally, directing her question to Lucifer while watching Beth with terrified eyes. 

The angel shrugs, “I was never one for ultra slow burn torture; I get bored,” he quips. “It's up to Bethy, I guess,” he tilts his head at her, “though I can appreciate the whole flaying thing; it's an oldie but a goodie. And, feeding you dead blood,” he makes an unpleasant face, “I've never seen anyone literally vomit up their insides, but I'll bet it's pretty cool; in a gross sort of way.”

“You're doing really well Luce,” Beth cuts into the silence as she turns up her drink. “I'm proud of you.” She comes over and bumps his shoulder. 

He shrugs, bumping hers right back, “If Olle can do what he did in Idaho, I can do this. I can see what you mean, now, about carrying your past but not wearing it. I see this as borrowing Gabe's whole Angel of Justice thing.”

Beth nods. Sitting her drink down, she turns to the Elders, “When I get back, I'm going to tell you all a story. For now, think about what you want to tell me when I'm done.” 

She steps out of the tent and, when she comes back a few minutes later, she is carrying Gabriela and dragging Oni's chains while the woman stumbles behind her mostly silent and barely bleeding. Putting the unconscious girl down on a red leather chaise lounge, she shoves Oni back to the ground; she lands on her side and curls up in the fetal position. “I'm not done with you yet,” Beth growls, kicking Oni in the stomach with her combat boot; causing her to scream, tapering off to an agonized groan, and roll away from Beth. “What kind of sick cunt volunteers to get knocked up just so the baby can be eaten at birth?” she yells. She shakes her head when the woman says nothing and looks up at the Elders pleasantly, “Got any answers for me yet fellas?” 

When no one speaks, she drags Oni over to the central tent support and secures her, arms above her head, feet unable to move more than a foot in any direction. As she goes over to pick up her Scotch, Lucifer moves to check on the sleeping Gabriela, “What are we going to do about her? She can't be sent home, those left alive will kill her.”

Beth thinks for a few minutes before she says, “I can give her to Gideon. He has a girl, student at Stanford law, who will need a blood slave when she is turned. She'll be well cared for, educated. We can't just give her to a orphanage or release her in the foster care system; she has power. Making her forget will make her too dangerous, and she knows about you, me, us; what was done here. I could call Fen, but you know what wolves or skin walkers will do to her; she's a virgin. They'll breed her until she's used up and, then, they'll eat her.”

Lucifer shakes his head, caressing the girls face, “How do you all live with such terrible choices?”

“Most of them aren't made to make such awful choices,” Beth answers. “The rest of us, we suffer and die and either know we're going somewhere worse or hope we're going somewhere better.”


	21. Chapter 21

Beth is quiet for a while, looking at the Elders for long minutes before watching Lucifer stare sadly at the still sleeping girl. When her glass is empty, she speaks, “There's a large wooden trunk in the armory at the house, Luce, can you get it for me?” He does not even speak, it just appears at her feet. “Thanks,” she nods as she opens it to pull out warded shackles and starts to secure each Elder to a chair. 

Finished with the Elders, she sits on the closed lid of the trunk and looks at Lucifer, “You need to go get Olle and take Gabriela and the children to the house so he and the boys can check them out and care for them until we can figure out what to do with all of them. The Tibetans would have kept records of who they were and where they came from; I'm sure many of them were sold to them. You can have your brothers see what the Rugaru can tell them. Have Gabe check the minds of the slaves and deal with them while you gather all the remains inside the house; it can be salted but not burnt until I'm finished here.”

“What are you going to do?” he asks seriously. 

She stands up and goes back over to refill her glass, happy to note there is an entire crate of Glenlivet in the far corner. “I'm going to get answers out of them,” she nods her chin at the Elders. “And, before I let her die, I'm going to make sure I'm more disgusted with myself than I ever was with her,” she says turning her head to stare at Oni.

“You don't have to do this,” Lucifer says quietly as he picks up Gabriela and holds her close. 

Pulling a knife from her boot, Beth stalks toward Oni saying, “I know, but I really want to.”

Lucifer vanishes before he can bare witness to Beth's fury and shame. But, before she can make it over to Oni, she reappears outside the tent; Olle standing about ten feet away. “Do you really, really want to do that?” he asks quietly. 

“Let them show you, let me tell you,” she barks out angrily, pointing back at the tent with her knife, “and then you can ask me that again.” She has not stopped walking, though, and she drops the blade to the ground as she wraps herself around him while his giant body encases her. 

Lifting her up like a child, he holds her against him while he whispers in her ear, “Lucifer told me, gave me a glimpse of everything. That woman doesn't deserve an ounce of remorse, but what do you want to tell her daughter the day she finally tracks you down?”

“That the woman who raised her was her mother and the thing that incubated her deserved what I did to her,” Beth says fiercely. 

Olle laughs into her hair, where her face is shoved into his neck, and goes over to sit, Beth still clinging to him, on the alter, “If you can tell me you'll sleep like a baby tonight, after I let you go back in there, then I'll leave you to it.”

She settles in his lap, legs around his waist, and changes the subject with a chuckle, “This would be so much better if you weren't with Sam and neither of us had clothes on.”

He smiles, but shakes his head, “Go in there and cut her throat. Torture the Elders for information if you need to, but making her suffer for your pleasure is something we swore we'd never do again,” he says aggressively.

That stops Beth cold and she pulls away from him far enough to make eye contact for a long minute before she nods, once. “Thanks,” she says uneasily, not sure how, but this whole thing got uncomfortable. She laughs, “I don't know how to be mad at you without feeling bad about myself and I don't know how to take you being mad at me; it hurts.”

“It's different now that we're not,” he trails off, rubbing his head uneasily while she climbs off his lap.

“Yeah,” she says running her hand down his arm and taking his hand. 

He gives her hand a gentle squeeze and prays, “Gabe, get me back to the house, I've got a lotta kids to check out. I don't know what we're going to do with all of them,” he says shaking his head. 

He is gone before Beth can utter her quiet, “I'm really, really sorry Olle.”

**

It is merciful, but not painless, when Beth cuts Oni's throat and leaves her, covered in her own blood, hanging from the tent post. 

“Let me tell you a story,” she says going around the sit on the table in front of the Elders. “A few years ago, there was a tanner's daughter who lived far North of here; her name was Rowena and her mother, Mary Campbell, was the daughter of John Campbell, a hunter. When he realized the girl was a witch, unable to kill his own daughter, he sold her to Ian McLeod as a wife; he figured the man, a devout Catholic, would see to her burning quick enough. Mary was a good Catholic, though, and an accidental witch; they had seven children before she died in childbirth.” 

Beth reaches around and plucks a piece of cold roast beef off the table behind her and chews while she continues, “Rowena, the eldest, had her mother's power and then some, but no one to teach her how to use it. Nadia, and the Coven, took her in; taught her things no one should learn. Then, one day when she was twenty, she met a man who promised her great power if she would bare him a son. Before the boy was born, the man disappeared, but he left with her an artifact of power and protection.” Picking up a bottle of wine, Beth drinks directly from it before going on, “Thinking she'd been cheated out of power, rejected as a whore by her family, she used her magick for dark purposes and she abused and neglected the boy as he grew older. When he was seven, she sold him to a tailor who did worse things to him than I care to think about, and she fled persecution brought down on her head by Nadia as a way to distract from the Coven's dealings.” 

“Now,” she says, thunking down the empty bottle of wine and hopping off the table, “who among you can elaborate on this tale?” she asks, waving her bloody knife between them. “I want particulars. Specifically, someone capable of drawing me a map of her movements from Scotland to Poland.”


	22. Chapter 22

Gabriel drops Olle in his kitchen in Kansas City where Sam is popping the magickally sealed locks on a half-dozen cages while Dean and Cas sit inside the largest one with nine children too young to walk; it would be endearing if the whole situation were anything but horrifying. He sighs, this is a nightmare; what are they going to do with all these children? Odds are, they were sold to the witches by their families so they cannot be returned. The younger ones, who won't remember as they get older, can be filtered into the foster system, but there are at least ten, boys and girls, who are old enough to understand, some at least, of what was done to them. 

Sam is floundering near the island, his boyfriend may want to be good with children, but he is nervous, “We need things for them to wear,” Olle says to him and Sam sighs, relieved to have something to do, “the younger ones need diapers, and we're all going to need something to eat.” He throws Sam his wallet, “Grocery store and,” he pauses here to watch two boys scratch their head, “bring me a prescription pad out of the butler's pantry and you can get some stuff for lice and mites.”

Sam nods and heads for the door on the far side of the room. 

Olle sits, legs crossed, in the middle of the floor, Dean has all the ones who will understand a tone of voice just as much as any spoken language, so he ignores them and starts to coax the others out of their cages. He tries English first, but they all just stare, so he moves through Asian dialects but nothing is working. He sighs, rubbing his face with both hands, and cursing in an ancient language spoken in northeastern India just after he came back from Hell; two of the boys closest to him flinch and he wonders who the fuck that Rugaru is. 

“How many of you can understand me?” he wants to know, looking among the frightened, unwashed faces. When several of them nod, he is both relieved and confused; the language fell out of use thousands of years ago. “Do any of you have names?” 

The eldest boy, about thirteen, nods, “They called me Sonam.” He is tall and lanky, will probably be built like Sam when he is grown, with green eyes; so filthy his skin tone and hair color cannot be distinguished. 

Olle nods with a smile; the boy is fortunate, just like his name implies, “Okay Sonam, we're not going to hurt any of you,” he looks around the room at all the children. “We're not going to eat you or beat you or anything like that. I'd like to get you all cleaned up, if that's okay? Do any of you speak English or Latin? My friends,” he looks over at Cas and Dean, both pulling the smaller kids out of their cage, “don't understand us right now.” The boy shakes his head and Olle goes on, “Okay, well, can you tell me how long you've been here?”

Now he nods, “I was about thirteen, I think.”

“How is it, then, you don't remember your mother tongue?” Olle wonders, the child does not look any older than that now. He thinks it may be as beneficial to have Gabriel read the children's minds, as the slaves. 

“This is my mother tongue,” the boy answers confused. 

Olle gets an ominous feeling and decides to break away from this conversation while he thinks for a moment. Turning to Sam, who has returned, he scribbles out prescriptions for soap and shampoo as well as vaccines, antibiotics, and ointments. “Go to Panera Bread and get as much chicken soup and they'll give you; it'll be easier on their stomachs. And whatever you and Dean will eat, and I want tomato and a steak Panini. Fresh fruits and vegetables and beef or chicken; all Organic. Nothing canned or packaged, they could have allergies or God knows what else wrong with them. Eggs and butter and block cheese and whole milk, yeast and bread flour and, just in case, a couple loaves of that gluten free Styrofoam that passes as bread.”

Sam nods, taking the keys to the Jag off the shelf by the garage door, before saying, “I'll be back ASAP.”

“We were told not to speak,” a girl says now, slowly crawling out of her cage to Olle's left. She is about eight, and her Russian is fluent, though stilted from lack of use. 

“How long have you been with the men who put you in the cage?” Olle wonders in Russian.

“I'm Nikki, the men with red eyes told me I didn't have a name anymore, but my mama called me Nikki. They took me from the shop while mama talked to the butcher. That was a long time ago. Were they German? Papa died fighting the Germans.”

Again, Olle's stomach turns and he simply says, “No Nikki, they weren't Germans.” Turning to Dean and Cas, he tells them, “Take them upstairs and put them in my tub. They can be wrapped in t-shirts until Sam gets back and the others can be taken downstairs and bathed as well. Once we get the worst of it off, they can be treated for lice and mites.” 

“Can't one of the guys just snap all this into some semblance of order?” Dean grouses, giggling three kids in his arms so they settle down. He is a natural father; it makes Olle sad. 

“We couldn't get the cages open,” Cas says indicating the angel warding on the cages, “but, probably, yeah. It is, I'm sorry, beyond my abilities, however.” 

Dean nods, “Everyone else is busy, so we do it the hard way.” He shifts the three kids around and looks down at Olle, “You gotta leave them alone for a few minutes and help us get the babies upstairs.”

Olle nods and, standing, looks down at Nikki, “I'm going to help them get the little ones settled into a bath, but I'll be right back.” When she nods, he turns and tells Sonam the same before grabbing four grimy, fussy kids and heading for the stairs.


	23. Chapter 23

“Dude,” Dean says following Olle up the steps with Cas behind him, “what the fuck did Beth get into that we've got this shit to deal with?”

Olle shakes his head, he did not even think about the fact that Sam and Dean have no idea what is going on. Headed through his bedroom, he answers Dean, “She was taken by the Grand Coven and forced to participate in human sacrifice.” They go into the bathroom and shut the door before Olle puts the four children, none over ten months old, on a huge plush rug by the black clawfoot tub, Dean and Cas following suit. Sitting on the edge of the tub, he turns the water on and looks up at Dean while checking the temperature with his hand, “They were trying to free Lucifer so he could lock Amara away.”

“Could they have done it?” Cas wonders right away.

Olle shakes his head, reaching down to push the stopper into the tub, “It wouldn't have even cracked open the Cage, but it was strong enough to summon him. If she hadn't been there, he would have just vanished on us about two hours ago.” Cas nods and Olle and Dean start chasing babies, about half of them are very good crawlers and two are pulling themselves upright on the tub; they pull the filthy rags they are wearing off and set them in the water. 

Four boys and five girls, about half of them start to cry when they get into the water, but it gives way to giggles and splashing soon enough with Dean and Olle playing with them. “Come on Cas,” Olle says standing, “take your coats off, roll your sleeves up, and give Dean a hand; I've got to get back downstairs.” Cas nods, following direction hesitantly. Olle chuckles, “There's oatmeal soap in the cabinet and towels in the closet. We can talk more about everything that happened when Sam gets back.”

With a nod from Dean, who is only just paying attention, Olle smiles and heads back downstairs. Outside the kitchen door, he prays, “Hey Luce, if you and Gabe are finished, I need one of you. Baz, man, I need that Rugaru to live; he's got some explaining to do so, make sure he keeps his tongue.”

Lucifer is sitting in Olle's vacated spot on the kitchen floor when the immortal comes through the door. The archangel is talking to the children, he is using at least four different languages and seems to have engaged them all in one conversation, but he stops when Olle's shadow falls over him and looks up, “I can see why you needed some help. Can I clean this up? I'll put the cages outside near the forge.” Olle nods and the angel does not even snap before only the grime covered children are left in the kitchen. 

“There are nine little ones, only two of them old enough to start trying to walk, upstairs with Cas and Dean; having a bath. Think you can go up there and give them a hand? Get them fed and tucked in for a nap.”

Lucifer nods, standing, “We need to talk, though, when I get back. This is more complicated than any of us thought.”

Olle nods, “I figured. Too many old languages and Nikki said something about,” but Lucifer cuts him off.

“Germans, yeah, she asked me too.” He stops at the door and looks back at Olle, “They all speak Tamil; they said it was the language the witches spoke and some of them are very fluent.”

“Fuck,” Olle sighs. “So it is what I think it is?” Lucifer just nods before slipping out the door and Olle turns to the over twenty children in his kitchen; they look malnourished, exhausted, and frightened. “Alright,” he tells them wearily, “over here,” he holds up his hands and they slowly form two lines. Leading them downstairs to the locker room, Olle herds them, at least four to a stall, into the showers. 

It is a group effort that sees Olle soaked through and wearing Balthazar's black capri yoga pants and deep v-neck t-shirt, but everyone is clean. Each wrapped in a towel, they fill both of Olle's large dining tables in the corner of the room. Once he has them all settled, and has torn the pantry apart looking for a bag of plastic cups, they still look nervous, and their stomachs are vocal in their desire for food, but they are sipping the water he gave them and a couple of the youngest are yawning; their hunger the only thing keeping them awake after the warm shower. Lucifer, Dean, and Cas come into the room as Olle settles at the island to pour himself four fingers of whiskey. He yawns now as well, thinking he should have traded Beth babysitting for torture. 

“Luce says it's bad,” are Dean's first words and Olle chuckles, shaking his head while he turns up his drink. Dean grabs the bottle and a glass before taking a seat beside the immortal and going on, “How bad?”

Olle sighs, turning in his chair to look at Dean and, standing behind him, Cas and Lucifer as stoically angelic as ever, “The children who can speak, speak several different languages. We've got Russian, ancient Tibetan, Arayan, and something I barely speak that's older than Old Skald. They all have a common language in the Tamil the Rugaru spoke to them, but,” here he trails off and turns up his glass again, emptying it. 

“But?” Dean grouses. 

“But, they all say they are speaking their mother tongue. I need to take a closer look at the cages they were held in, but I think we're looking at a really well thought out feeding trough the Rugarus have set up for themselves,” Olle says reaching for the bottle again. 

“Huh?” Dean asks, confused. 

Before Olle can answer, Sam comes through the door laden with bags and everyone moves to help. Once the children all have food in front of them and the men are settled at the island with their own dinner, Olle catches Sam up on their earlier conversation before going on to explain, “They took the children, or bought them, and they keep them, forever, as children; locked, for sale, in those cages. They don't age and they are used to attract witches.”

“A witch buys the child and the Rugaru uses the delivery to eat the witch,” Sam exclaims, having figured it out. 

Olle nods, “I'd seen it before in ancient Egypt, with Rugarus and gods, but I thought the practice was lost when Rugarus were hunted to near extinction by Gabriel and Thor.”

“Why would Gabriel do that?” Lucifer wonders, standing on the opposite side of the island. 

Olle shrugs, still eating, “When Thor killed Loki, he did it because he hated him. They weren't brothers anymore than Odin was their father. Loki stole Thor's daughter Sif.” Olle shifts around in his seat to stare among them, “This was a long fucking time ago, thousands of years before I went to Hell. The gods were new, barely realized power, and Thor's family had yet to ascend. Sif was twelve and Loki was eighteen or twenty, not unheard of, but still. Loki stole her and when she rejected him, he sold her to the Rugaru slavers. Gabe was Farbauti at the time and he and Fenrir were good friends of Thor. Sif would become the mother of Fen's new sons; the alphas of their species. In thanks for helping him recover his daughter, and for allowing Thor not only to wield but to keep Mjolnir, he helped Gabe pick up Loki's persona when Gabe left Egypt.”

“That's how he became Loki?” Lucifer asks. When Olle nods, he asks another questions, “But, if they killed them all, who is this guy that wanted to go all Hannibal on Beth?”

“I got no clue, but,” Olle tone gets angry and dark, “what do you mean he wanted to eat her?” He puts his sandwich down and stares hard the angel. 

Lucifer leans on the table, suddenly uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation; if Olle reacts half as badly as Gabriel or Balthazar had this is not something he wants to tell the man when Olle still needs to talk to the Rugaru. “She bought the children, with Gabriel's rubies, but he had a Tibetan Blood Blade. He wanted her to ride him while he took her left arm to the elbow.” 

Surprisingly, Olle just shakes his head. “God I'm stupid,” is all he says before he goes back to eating.


	24. Chapter 24

“None of us are sleeping tonight, you get that right?” Dean asks Olle as they pace back and forth in the immortal's bedroom; each man trying to get a fussy baby back to sleep. 

Olle chuckles, still rocking and pacing, “We can sleep in shifts.” That will not work, either, though, he realizes because, even now that Gabriela is awake, there are only five of them and nine babies; not to mention the two dozen older children all asleep in the TV room on the fourth floor. He may kill Beth later. 

“Oh, good, here,” Dean says to Cas when he comes in the room with Gabriela and Sam. 

Taking the baby Dean thrusts at him, the angel rocks and paces and pats the child's back and it calms almost immediately; until he tries to lay her back down on the bed with the other fussy little ones and the screaming starts again. Picking the child back up, he continues his rhythm. “Are they hungry?” the angel wonders. “Or ill?”

Olle shakes his head, handing Dean the boy he was rocking and going over to steer Sam toward the bed, where Gabriela is picking up a green eyed little girl with dark skin and a purple birthmark on her thigh, “I checked them all out after we ate. They are all a little malnourished, but none of them have anything really urgently wrong with them.” He picks up a little boy who just woke up because the girl beside him rolled over and smacked him in the face. Before the child starts to cry, Olle bounces him a bit to calm him down and turns to Sam, “Here Babe, just,” he holds the boy out to him, one hand under his butt, the other around his torso, “same as Cas,” he tilts his head at the angel. Sam is hesitant, but he takes the boy and settles him against his chest, holding him gently and Olle grins, turning to share a smile with Dean. 

“Just think of them as puppies Sammy, and you'll do just fine,” his brother jokes. 

Olle laughs but then they all hear a little grunt of dissatisfaction and Olle lunges for the bed; the blue eyed little ginger who woke up Sam's charge is trying to push pillows off the bed and get down. Grabbing her before she tips herself head first into the floor, Olle brings her face to face with him and says, sternly, “No!” She looks at him belligerently, for a long five seconds, before she starts to scream like he just tried to kill her. Olle and Dean laugh, and the immortal goes over to close the bathroom door before putting her down in the floor and letting her throw a fit. Her outburst having woken the rest of them and made all of them start to fuss and cry, Olle sits on the bed with the four who just woke and prays, “Luce, man, you wanna read to the kids?”

The angel appears by the hallway door and goes immediately over to pick up Olle's little troublemaker. She quiets almost instantly, in awe of the angel. When he tries to put her back on the bed, she clings to his green t-shirt and starts to whimper so he stands back up and asks, “What should I read to them?”

“Anything,” Dean says, putting the boy he was holding back on the bed with the others as they all start to quiet, “just use a soothing tone and you can read the phone book, they won't understand it anyway.”

“We can't stay in here with them all night,” Olle tells him. “You're better able to watch them all than we are. I can sit with the children upstairs; they need someone with them they can communicate with.” Olle gets up, fixing the perimeter of pillows along the edge of the bed. “Just pick your favorites of the children's books you've read. Show them the pictures and just make sure they don't roll off the bed and hurt themselves. They'll all go back to sleep soon; they're probably still on Edinborough time.”

Lucifer nods and appears on the bed, back against the headboard, still holding the girl; a stack of books beside him. Once all the babies are settled back on the bed, he picks a books and starts to read, “Here was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid.”

Olle smiles, motioning for the other men to follow him into the hallway as Gabriela sits on the foot of the bed and listens as well. Closing the door quietly, he tells the others, “You should all get some sleep while you can. He is going to need help with them during the night. Reading to them, keeping them occupied until they go back to sleep is easy, but if they get fussy he won't know what to do.”

“What about you?” Sam asks, reaching out and taking Olle's hand. 

“None of you speak Tamil,” Olle says smiling at Sam, giving his hand a squeeze. “Just because we've been good to them so far, doesn't mean they don't think something horrible is going to happen any second. They need someone with them who can speak to them. They're spread all over the TV area, I'll grab a pillow and join them.” 

“Could you teach me?” Cas asks. “I mean, could you specifically concentrate on the language? I may be able to pull it out of your head that way. I don't need to sleep. I can stay with the children, then, and you can get some rest.”

Olle gives it some thought before answering, “I speak Tamil because I spoke the preceding dialects before Azazel drug me into Hell. I had to use that and the Tamil dialect being spoken when I was in India after I got out of Hell to cobble together the language as the children are speaking it. What they speak is probably a thousand years old, but what I know is probably two thousand years old cobbled together with something that's probably six thousand years old.” Olle shrugs, “If you think you can make sense of it, we can try.”

Lucifer's voice comes through the bedroom door then, “He could just come in here and I can teach him Tamil.” 

The devil's tone is amused and Olle chuckles, “He's right. It'll be faster to learn it from him.”

Cas nods and heads back through the door while Olle heads upstairs, the brothers following, “We've got to find a fucking angel and get his Grace and his memories fixed. He'd know Tamil, and every other damn language ever, if Michael weren't such a prick!”

“What do you mean?” Dean wonders. 

Stopping on the third floor, Olle looks at the brothers and says, “Cas and Baz were the first of the Host, literally number one and number two. Archangels, Leviathan, Gergori, Cas and Baz. Because all angels were made with the ability to move through time, God gave them the ability to communicate through time; knowing all languages that were, are, or ever will be. That knowledge, and who knows what else, is something Michael took from them.” Shaking his head, he starts back up the stairs, “That's one of the reasons I wish Naomi were still alive; only she would really know how much they all lost. Even if Michael made her forget as well, and I'm sure he had to, there would be a record, somewhere, of exactly what was taken from each angel. She would have known where the records are, no matter where Michael hid them, because she was adding to them every time she squeegeed someone's memory.”

“Was Metatron squeegeed?” Dean wonders. 

Olle shakes his head, speaking quietly as they all go into the rec-room, “I don't think Michael started wiping memories until after Luce went into the Cage. Marv didn't skip out on Heaven until after that so I don't know what he knows, exactly, but he knew who I was when Gabe and I used him to redirect Cas' curse.”

“What do you mean he knew who you were?” Sam asks. 

Olle sits with the them at the table in the kitchenette, “He called me 'First Soul',” he says his old name in Enochian. “That was what Gabriel named me when we met and that, or a derivation thereof, is the name I used until Mikhail; until Fen named me Olle in 2005.”

“Why don't we just use his Grace?” Sam asks. “It was unwillingly taken, by Cas even.”

Olle shakes his head, “I need it for Kevin. I need to make sure he's still a prophet when I bring him back and using Marv's Grace is the only way to do that.” Just then, a young boy, about four, wakes up screaming and Olle gets up from the table, “Let's deal with this before we worry about that again, okay?”


	25. Chapter 25

Pacing back and forth, Beth stops in front of Omar, “Well?” she asks him expectantly. 

Omar sputters for a moment before he gets out, “Nadia was an Elder and the High Priestess of the Coven, had been for over five hundred years.”

“What she did with her time,” a tall red headed Irishman named Liam interrupts, “was her own business. Did we follow you around trying to figure out what you were always up to?” he sneers.

Beth nods agreement with that, but still needs to know what they know. She stalks over to Orson, a tall black-skinned witch from subSaharan Africa with glowing emerald eyes that would put Dean's to shame, “Come on O, you followed Rowena around like a puppy. No way you didn't know what she was up to, where she was going. Chances are,” she pulls a knife from her belt and runs it down the man's face then along his jugular, “you were the one who told Nadia everything she knows.” Stopping the blade at the base of his throat, she waits. 

“I wanted information about Rowena,” he says finally. “Nadia, though, wouldn't tell me. I searched for her for years, but I have no idea where she went when she fled Scotland.” He is nervous, but, she thinks, he could still be lying. 

“Okay,” she quips, turning to head back to Oni's body. Grabbing an empty wineglass, she scoops as much blood as she can off the dead woman. She is silent while she works, putting the cup aside and moving to clean off one end of the feast table. That done, she goes back to her trunk for a hammer and forged iron nails with warding symbols. Releasing Ethel's shackles from the chair, she spreads the vampire out face down on the table; nailing the shackles in place. “Now,” she tells the bound woman, “it's been a while since I've done this, so it may not be all in one piece, but we'll get there. Don't be afraid to scream. Just know, it may distract me; I used a silence sigil in Hell.” The vampire-witch struggles in vain as Beth begins cutting her black leggings and red dress off slowly. 

By the time Ethel's smooth caramel skin is fully exposed, Beth is sweating and praying someone offers up some useful information. It is not that she is unwilling to go through with it, quite the opposite, really; she is starting to get excited by the prospect of making that first circular cut at Ethel's ankle. The fact that, even after so many thousands of years, she still enjoys the torture, makes her as repulsed as she is enticed.

Going to drop the witch's clothes in the nearest fire pit, she stops to pull a leather toolkit from the bottom of the her trunk. Unrolling the meticulously selected set of knives by Ethel's head, Beth pulls a short curved blade from its pocket and smooths her free hand down the woman's body to hold her ankle still, “I'm probably going to do this no matter what,” she admits. “I've got a serious hard on right now and no one around I want to help me beast fuck it out of my system, so,” she shrugs, “can anyone give me anything distracting enough to stop me?”

“Nadia was the only one who ever really kept tabs on Rowena,” Omar says frantically. “She was the only one who ever thought that silly ginger whore was worth keeping track of!”

Panting, terrified, Ethel says, “Serena said the demons who took Nadia were told to do so on order from Crowley! They were here for tribute, like always, but they took her instead! She's the only one that can tell you anything about Rowena!”

“Why is that bitch so fucking important?” Liam snarls. 

Beth laughs and decides she is going to tell them, before she kills them. “Letting you all live this long was a mistake on my part. But, before I kill you, how'd you like to know something no one is going to believe once you get to Hell? How would you like to know something that is going to get you all locked away and tortured unmercifully, forever?” She laughs again, blade slicing around Ethel's ankle and up the back of her leg to the curve of her ass. The witch cries out, but Beth's blade is so sharp there is no blood. As she goes around the table to do the same to her other leg, she starts to speak, “I was the man who bartered a child for power when Rowena was young. But,” she stops to think about how she wants to proceed with Ethel. Putting her hand in the middle of the vampire's back, she tells her, “If you don't stop squirming, you're going to rip yourself open and it's going to hurt worse.” Vaulting onto the table and crouching between Ethel's legs, Beth starts cutting again while she speaks, “I was chased away by Azazel's pack of hellhounds before Fergus was born. And,” Beth says cutting a straight line from just above Ethel's clenched hole to just between her shoulder blades, “Rowena was long gone and he was in his sixties when I found him. I made a mistake then,” she admits, turning her blade in one fluid motion to head down Ethel's right arm, “when I called out to Gabriel and made him show Fergus who he truly was.”

“You've got to be fucking joking!” a new voice laughs. Beth hops off the table and looks across Ethel's still, quiet, body at the man, she never bothered to learn his name but he was an Aztec priest for God knows how long before the Spaniards came; she does remember that. “There's no way you'll ever convince me that ginger idiot carried a Fallen!”

Beth just smiles, hoping back up on the table to do Ethel's other arm. “The Gregori Legion,” Beth tells them with a smile. “I know some of you are old enough to know the name.” Standing by Ethel's body now, a wicked idea comes to her and she turns to the vampire, “How pissed would you be if I just,” and she smooths her hand along the precision cut at the vampires forearm, causing her to cry out as it finally starts to bleed. When her hand is coated in blood, Beth turns a maniacal grin on the Elders and laughs, “I'm going to be full to bursting with you all before the night is done,” and licks her palm. 

**

Sam is jerked awake by the sound of his cell phone. Grabbing for the light in the unfamiliar room, he groans, “Huh? What?” into the phone as he pulls himself up on the side of the bed. 

“Sam,” the alpha vampire's voice purrs through the connection. “Where is Olle?”

“Upstairs,” he answers confused and still half asleep. “Why?”

Tarak chuckles, “It is just such a rare occasion he allows himself to become one of my children. Such an invigorating feeling to be plugged into,” he practically shivers with excitement. “Ask him, can you please, how long he intends to remain a vampire this time so I can know how long I'll be graced with his presence.”

Sam drops the phone and grabs his demon blade from the nightstand, not sure what he is going to find when he gets into the hallway. Stopping to pound on his brother's door, Dean jerks it open, “What?”

“Something's happened,” Sam says.


	26. Chapter 26

“Olle,” Sam's serious voice breaks through the man's peaceful slumber. “Baby,” the term of endearment gets him fully awake and he smiles, stretching. 

Sam yelps as Olle pulls him down on top of him, “I like it when you call me Baby, Sammy. Do it again?” he asks, pulling the hunter down onto his mouth. 

Dean clearing his throat breaks the sleepy, happy spell and Olle releases Sam to sit up. “We've got a problem,” the eldest Winchester tells him while Sam get to his feet again. 

Letting his boyfriend pull him to his feet, Olle looks around at all the peacefully sleeping children, then Cas and the brothers staring at him, and wonders, “What else is going on now?”

“Tarak called,” Sam starts. Olle is fully on guard when Sam tells him, “We think Beth's a vampire.”

Shaking his head, Olle makes for the front of the room, “Where's your phone?” Sam hands him his phone and Olle taps the call log before pushing Tarak's number. “Hey T, it's Olle.” The vampire's timber comes through, though the brother's can not hear what is being said. “I'm sorry. It should only be a couple of days. Look, though, I have a girl, about fourteen, who is going to need a family. She's a witch, though I'm not sure how strong she'll be. No,” he shakes his head, “I'm not going to give her to Ethel. I took her from the Elders and they're all going to be dead in a few hours. I need this girl taken care of. She's young and foolish and easily lead; I wanted to give her to Sarah's daughter as a graduation gift. Alright, just have her brother call me; he has my number. Get some rest T, it'll be over in a couple of days. I'm sorry.” Olle hands the phone back to Sam and, motioning them into the hallway, prays before anyone can speak, “Balthazar,” his tone is irate, “why did you let her turn herself into a vampire?”

The angel appears before him and says, “We're all busy Olle, this is a shit storm, no one is with her.”

“Fuck,” he rakes his hand through his hair, “take me to her.”

“Hey,” Sam says reaching out to grab his arm before he vanishes, “be careful.” 

Olle smiles and pulls Sam into him for a fast, deep kiss, “What's the worst she can do Sammy, eat me?” 

The immortal is gone before Sam can respond. 

**

Olle finds Beth still inside the tent, Ethel and Omar the only ones left alive. Ethel's skin is a neatly folded stack between the woman's legs, and that is the least of what she has done to them all. Beth straddles her waist, pouring what must be dead blood on her chest while she writhes, frothing at the mouth; she has been fed dead blood.

“Bethy,” the immortal says, clearly disappointed, “what the fuck are you doing? Tarak is freaking out right now, too plugged into us like this.”

She looks up at him then, for all appearances perfectly human. “You can cut my head off in a few minutes. I'm sorry about T,” she says sincerely. “I just couldn't stop feeling it and I needed,” she vaults off Ethel and lands like a cat, behind Omar, “I needed to not feel it.” She shakes her head and licks, delicately, at the trickle of blood running along his neck, “It's easier this way.” She looks up at him sharply, “You know that. The hunger overpowers everything and you can let yourself drown in it.” Laughing, she exposes her fangs and drains Omar dry before, like all the others, ripping his head off with a few sharp twists. 

Coming further into the tent, Olle takes a scimitar from the body of one of the Elders. “You're chasing Lee's Grace aren't you?” he asks, watching her go back to torturing Ethel with more dead blood. 

Sitting Omar's head on Ethel's stomach, she uses it to push herself into a standing position on the table, “Not a fucking one of them could tell me a damn thing.”

“You be careful with Crowley,” he tells her, pointing the sword at her; knowing that is where she is going for information next. “You know how he is and, for the love of fuck, don't tell him you're me when you meet him.”

Beth laughs, landing on the ground in front of him. “Wanna do the honors?” she tilts her head at Ethel; the woman is clearly mad after everything Beth has done to her over the past few hours. 

Olle shrugs and brings the scimitar down, severing Ethel's head and most of her right arm. Looking up at Beth, Olle tells her, “If one of the guys smites you, as much magick as there is here, you should come right back. Want me to get one of them?”

Beth pouts, going over to drop in an empty chair, “I'm so blood drunk right now. Can't I just enjoy it for a while?” she laughs. 

Olle looks around, there is actually very little blood anywhere. Beth, on the other hand, looks positively rosy cheeked with how much she has feed. Shaking his head, he uses the scimitar to point at his trunk, “Get in there and sleep it off while we clean up this mess. Then,” he tells her seriously, because he is tired and pissed about everything she has done, “you're getting smote!”

Clearly blood drunk, she turns a sleepy, pouty face to him and whines, “Can't I see Sam and Dean before I go?”

“Fuck no!” he chuckles, shaking his head and, lifting the lid on the trunk, points. “Christ, they already smell good enough to eat with our everyday senses! In! Sleep!”

“Ugh, fine!” she groans like an angry teen. Rolling out of the chair, she crawls to the trunk and gets inside; it is nearly as big as a twin bed so she stretches out easily. Olle slams the lid, locking her inside just to be safe. “Spoil sport,” he hears her grump from inside and laughs, sitting on the lid and running his hands through his hair; surveying the disaster she has created here. 

“Fucking Christ Beth, what am I supposed to do now?” he wonders tiredly. The Rugaru just needs to be killed, returning the children is not an option so anything he could tell them is worthless. Killing the children would probably be what he would have done if this had happened even a hundred years ago, but, even if he could bring himself to, Sam and Dean would not allow it. They are not going to like any of the ideas he can come up with either. The smallest can be placed in foster care, not ideal but better than nothing. The older ones, though, even with angelic intervention, can not be made to forget all the possible centuries without suffering permanent damage. Vampires will make them blood slaves and wolves or skin-walkers will turn them. There are a few small covens, families, who could probably be persuaded to take some of them, but not if they have no natural magick. Giving them to hunters is not practical either, unless the brothers want to see them all jerked up like they were.


End file.
